


The Winchester Omnibus

by LaMepriseFangirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Sam Winchester, Gen, Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, The Epic Love Story of Sam and Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2020-07-19 02:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19966777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaMepriseFangirl/pseuds/LaMepriseFangirl
Summary: A collection of short casefics set in season 15 (unaired as of writing), wrapping up most of the loose ends we've collected over the past fourteen years and covering a few tropes they've neglected to use as episode concepts, culminating in an end to the Winchesters' story.





	1. The Great Tribulation

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this work as Gen, because there will be no explicit slash pairings, but there will be some romantic/sexual interactions with one-off characters. Some of it will not be consensual, but I will warn for that on individual chapters.
> 
> Any and all similarities between this work and season 15 are ~~proof they should have hired me as a writer~~ coincidences, with one exception which I will note when the relevant chapter is posted.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam, Dean, and Castiel escape from their dire situation in the cemetery, and Sam has a visitor.

This is the biggest horde of zombies Sam and Dean have ever faced—Castiel, too. There must be hundreds of them, all growling and grabbing at the three men. No sooner has one been dispatched does another take its place to try to maul them.

"Get to the car!" Dean shouts.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel, separated by the vicious undead, try to fight their way to where the cars are parked. Something grabs Sam's left shoulder, the one that got shot, and the pain slows him down just enough for another zombie to throw him off balance.

"Dean!" Sam, on his knees, wrestles for control of the piece of wrought iron he's been defending himself with, and this all feels a lot like the time those vampires ripped out his throat. "Dean!"

"Sam?!"

Sam's current upper body strength can't compete against that of two zombies working together, so he decides to abandon his weapon. He suddenly shoves it away from his body and lets go. He breaks free of the one holding on to his shoulder and makes a run for it.

Dean is only a couple yards away, fighting his way back to Sam, when Sam hears something whistling past his ear—the rusty iron spike he just surrendered. It flies right past him and into his brother's chest.

Dean falls, hitting his head on a tombstone.

"Dean!"

He isn't moving.

No, no, no, Sam can't lose his brother now. He's lost Mom, he's lost Jack, he's lost faith in the idea of the creator of the universe being on their side. All he has left is Dean.

He can't get to his brother's body; there are too many zombies grabbing at him.

Then he sees one go over to Dean and pull the spike out of his chest. It raises the weapon high, as if it's about to plunge it into Dean's heart.

" _Nooo!_ "

Sam doesn't know how he recognizes it after all these years, but he can feel a familiar dark power inside him, and he uses it because if he doesn't, his brother will die. He stretches out his hand and shoves every zombie away with the power of his mind. They go flying, over fifty feet in some cases.

Then his vision starts to go dark. His head is pounding, blood is dripping from his nose, and he collapses halfway to Dean's body.

***

A tall figure is standing in an unfamiliar bedroom. It's dark, for the occupant of the bed is asleep.

There's an evil aura emanating from the figure, but it's being reined in or held back from the sleeping person. Somehow, the oblivious individual is safe, for the moment.

A car drives past the window, its lights briefly illuminating the room and revealing both faces—a dark-haired girl not much older than nine or ten, and a man with yellow eyes.

***

Sam wakes up in the bunker infirmary drenched in sweat and with an even worse headache than before.

That was a premonition; he's sure of it.

Dean is dozing in a chair next to the bed. He looks uninjured.

"Dean?"

His older brother wakes up instantly, his expression one of pure relief when he sees Sam awake.

"Hey. How do you feel?"

"Thirsty, and my head hurts." Sam sits up. His shoulder's been bandaged but he's wearing mostly the same clothes as before. "What happened?"

"'What happened?' You killed like five dozen zombies and passed out!"

"How'd we get out of the cemetery?"

"Cass healed me and we finished off the ones you didn't kill."

Sam notices a glass of water on the table next to the bed and takes a few sips before continuing:

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Almost a whole day. Cass couldn't wake you up." Dean nods at Sam's shoulder. "Couldn't do anything about that, either."

"Hm." Sam doesn't mind waiting for the wound to heal. It'll be an objectively badass scar, assuming they live through whatever's just started.

"Sam, what did you do? Cass said you threw the zombies. And him."

"There was one about to kill you. I had to stop him." Sam was just acting reflexively at the time; now that he has a chance to think it over he remembers another time he used straight-out telekinesis. "Like when I moved that cabinet years ago, because I had a vision of you dying."

"...So is this a demon blood thing?"

Sam tenses, as he always does at the thought of demon blood.

"I don't know. I haven't been able to do anything like that since we killed Azazel."

The brothers look at each other, the same thought occurring to both.

Sam wants to deny it, but he just had a premonition featuring a yellow-eyed demon. A cold, sick feeling creeps over him.

"...What've I done?" he asks his brother.

"What?"

"I shot Chuck, he snapped his fingers, and brought back hundreds of ghosts and zombies. Maybe he brought back demons, too. What if he brought back everything evil we ever killed?"

"Chuck can't bring anyone back from the Empty."

"He might've made a deal or something, I don't know, but if Jack could bring-"

Then Sam remembers that Jack is dead, and it _hurts_. His breath catches; his eyes start to warm with the threat of tears.

He doesn't know how any part of him could have been angry enough to want the nephilim dead.

"Sammy," Dean says gently, "whatever the hell's going on, we'll figure it out and deal with it, like always."

Will they, really? Sam has to wonder what's going to change now that he officially pissed off God.

*

Sam puts The Gun away in a box in his room. It might be completely useless, or it might be their only play against some powerful opponent. He wonders if it can be fired safely at inanimate objects. And what happens if you shoot yourself with it? Sure, it's not _important_ to know, but Sam likes to understand how things work.

He wonders who the girl in his dream is and what the yellow-eyed demon wants with her. It has to be Azazel; Sam's visions were always related to him or the people Azazel poisoned.

He has to find her before it's too late, but he doesn't know where to start. She's just some girl.

Sam is sitting at his desk, thinking hard about the issue, when he hears someone clear their throat behind him.

He's startled to see Chuck.

"What the hell-"

"Just here to let you know the penalty for shooting me."

"You killed Jack!"

Chuck holds up his hand, indicating that Sam should shut up and listen.

"You might be my favorite, but your actions can't go unpunished."

Although Sam seriously doubts that he's God's favorite, he's aware that Lucifer was once His favorite, and he got locked in a cage for millennia. There's no escaping divine retribution, for anyone.

"What's the punishment?"

"Whenever you and Dean die, you'll be separated. One of you will go to Heaven, the other will go to Hell. Who goes where depends on which one of you is in higher moral standing at the time of your death. It could go either way."

Sam takes that in. He can hardly imagine a worse afterlife than one away from Dean, but if he can guarantee his brother goes to Heaven...

"...I'll go to Hell," he offers. He gets up. "I'll go now, just let me say goodbye to Dean."

"No. I want you to earn a place in your afterlife."

"You want me to be evil?"

"I don't care who goes where. The point is that you're separated from your brother when this is all over."

With that, Chuck vanishes.


	2. Vice Versa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miraculously, Dean lived long enough to regret a poor decision he made eight years ago regarding a kitsune...

It's been close to three weeks since Sam shot God and triggered possibly the end of the world. He, Dean, and Castiel are spinning their wheels. All they know so far is that ghosts they once banished are back.

Jericho, California—a man known for serial adultery disappears heading home on Centennial Highway.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—a blonde woman disappears from her apartment.

Fairfax, Indiana—a student at Truman High is killed.

Vermilion, Ohio—a guest at the Pineview Hotel dies. They've been scalped.

Kearney, Missouri—a man kills his wife over a disagreement about the centerpieces at their wedding, which happened in 1979.

Worcester, Massachusetts—a man dies after his wife stabs him. She reports not being in control of her actions.

Teenage boys from a Chicago surburb have started disappearing, and it strikes a chord in Sam's memory but he can't place it with everything else that's going on.

Every hunter Sam and Dean have spoken to is at a loss, because the ghosts don't seem to be attached to anything. They're just _there_ , killing people until they finish getting their revenge or someone finds an obscure hoodoo ritual to put them to rest. Or they're just plain crazy and violent and are killing anyone who gets in their way. More civilians than ever before are being taught to use iron and salt to protect themselves.

The zombie uprising was limited to the graveyard they were in, but that's little comfort when the familiar names keep rolling in.

Cassie Robinson and her mother in Missouri, Deacon Kaylor at Green River County Detention Center, Delilah Marian in Iowa, Rita Johnson from Minnesota, and Stuart Blake from Ohio. All dead.

Should they even bother? Sam starts to wonder. How can they fight God? What will be left even if they win? Wouldn't fighting this just be playing into what Chuck wants, for them to struggle and suffer for his entertainment?

And what happens afterwards, when he and his brother die for good? He tried summoning a demon to make a deal to go to Hell, but none appeared. They're scared to make a deal with a Winchester.

When Sam sleeps, which isn't often, he sees Azazel. The demon is watching the same girl every night, unable to harm her but waiting for an opportunity. Sam wishes he knew who she was, but all he has is a sleeping face to go on. He goes so far as to look up Rose Holt, the girl that the yellow-eyed demon tried to give demon blood to almost fourteen years ago. She's finishing up freshman year in high school, too old to be whoever Sam is seeing, and looks nothing like the sleeping girl, anyway.

*

There's an unpleasant tension in the bunker between Castiel and the Winchesters, specifically between Cas and Dean.

He never says it, but it's clear that just as Dean blamed Castiel for their mom's death, Cas blames him for Jack's.

Maybe he has a point. Dean was angry and vengeful, and if he hadn't gone to the graveyard with the gun, things might have turned out differently.

But it's clear that Chuck wanted Jack gone, and he would have found a way to make that happen.

It isn't anyone's fault, but Jack was Castiel's son first, and that's proven by the fact that Sam and Dean even considered killing him. Sam is ashamed of himself for having wanted that at any point, so he doesn't blame the angel for his feelings.

So it's not a surprise when Cas takes off one day, ostensibly to check out a likely haunting a few states over.

*

The next night, Dean drags Sam to a local bar to unwind, claiming it's because Sam's birthday was last week and they completely ignored it. It's obvious what he's after, though. Sam is too troubled to pursue a hookup, but he goes along with it just in case he miraculously meets someone he connects with. Won't be the first time he's been pleasantly surprised.

Not long after they arrive, a gorgeous woman walks in. She catches both their eyes, which results in a somewhat tense moment between the brothers. Sam can't remember the last time he and Dean felt the need to compete over a specific woman, but she is really hot. And he's had a longer dry spell than Dean, plus it was his birthday last week, so he should get to talk to her first.

He decides to yield to Dean, though. In his excitement over meeting a real, live busty Asian beauty—because she absolutely is one—Dean might actually say something stupid enough to get rejected.

Sam watches them out of his peripheral vision. The woman is flirting with Dean, but going by Dean's expression, she's making him work for it. He's hiding his confusion from everyone other than Sam. Most of the time he'll either pick up a date or strike out in under ten minutes, but three-quarters of an hour into the conversation, he doesn't seem to know whether he's reeled her in or not. It's kind of entertaining, knowing how very badly Dean wants to sleep with this woman and seeing him struggle.

Sam can't help but imagine how very satisfying it would be to get her in bed after Dean gives up. Maybe he could fuck her against a wall; she's rather petite. It would be fun to pick her up, feel her whole weight in his arms and her legs around his waist as he-

 _Slow the fuck down, Sam._ He's a little surprised at himself for thinking of her so explicitly, and tries to keep more polite things on his mind.

Finally, the woman nods at the door while whispering to Dean. Dean gives his brother a triumphant look as he leaves with his catch.

Sam nods back and orders another drink.

*

Twenty minutes later, Sam gets a call from his brother.

"Hey, what's up?"

He hears a rustling sound, he's pretty sure the sound of the phone being put into a pocket.

 _"You need to take that?"_ a woman's voice asks.

 _"It's nothing,"_ Dean says, in a tone that's definitely not one he's ever used with Sam. _"You call this path a shortcut? We're like half a mile into the woods."_

He's giving Sam his location.

This is strange, though. If he's that creeped out by where his date is taking him, Dean could just... walk away. He doesn't need backup; he can take care of himself. Even if he got jumped he'd probably be fine.

On the other hand, Dean probably doesn't want to turn down an opportunity to have sex, so maybe he's trying to be subtle, not let her know that he's thinking about bailing.

Whatever it is, Sam should probably try to find them if Dean thinks he might be in enough trouble to need Sam's help. He leaves the bar, listening to the conversation:

 _"I think a walk in the woods is romantic,"_ the woman replies.

_"Romantic, huh?"_

_"Mmhmm."_ More rustling, and the sound of a kiss. _"There's another shortcut we could take."_

There's some heavy breathing that makes Sam want to hang up or at least hold the phone away from his ear. He forces himself to keep listening. If there is something going on, any competent person would wait until Dean is actually vulnerable to attack.

He sees a path leading into the woods and follows it.

 _"Take it out for me, baby,"_ she whispers.

Sam hears a belt buckle and a zipper and almost ends the call. He's not gonna listen to that when Dean's partner doesn't even know-

_"Careful with your nails down th- augh!!!"_

_"What's wrong, Dean?"_ a young male voice asks, _"You don't recognize me?"_

 _"You're a kitsune,"_ Dean replies shakily, his voice high and nervous. Sam doesn't want to imagine the compromising position he's probably in right now but now it's confirmed that Dean is in danger, so he breaks into a run.

_"Yeah, like my mother."_

_"Your mom? ...Was your mom A-"_ Dean's breath catches; something made him break off mid-sentence.

 _"Don't even say her name."_ There's a dramatic pause, and then: _"You murdered her."_

Sam stops in his tracks. Jacob Pond. He never even asked his brother what happened to the kid after he killed Amy. It never occurred to him that Jacob, a child then, saw Dean do it and planned his revenge for the next eight years.

The path forks. Sam has no time to lose and he's too panicked to look for clues or make a logical decision, so he goes right.

 _"What's your name?"_ Dean asks.

_"Jacob."_

_"Jacob, I know this doesn't mean a damn thing to you, but I'm sorry."_

_"She was my_ mom _!"_ The kitsune's voice is trembling with emotion. _"She was never going to hurt another person again, but you didn't care. You just stabbed her and walked away!"_

 _"...If you wanna kill me, I'm not gonna fight you,"_ Dean says. _"I get it. But getting revenge won't fix anything. It won't bring her back. You'll still miss her. You'll still be pissed as hell. You kill me now, it'll feel great, but that feeling will be gone before you even make it back to the main road."_

Sam realizes around then that he took the wrong turn. He's gone too far without finding them, so they had to have gone the other way. He runs back.

Through the phone, he hears a sound that he interprets as pure mental anguish. It's a pain Sam has felt, aching for something he too has now lost.

He's running through the woods, trying to save his brother, but in truth, Sam's never been closer to sympathizing with someone who wished his brother harm. Amy was done killing; her death was pointless.

As would Dean's, if he were to be killed now.

Then Sam sees them up ahead.

Dean is pinned up against a tree by a teenage boy with long sharp claws. One set of claws is at Dean's neck, threatening to cut his throat, and the other is somewhere below the belt, probably threatening castration if not complete emasculation.

"Dean!"

Jacob turns to see a gun pointed at him.

"Lemme guess, you're the brother?"

"Yep," Dean answers for him, "and if you kill me now, you're not gonna live long enough to enjoy it. You're doing this for your mom, right? Do you think this is what she wanted for you?"

"I- I don't-"

"It isn't," Sam puts in.

"You didn't know her! You don't even know who I am!"

"I know your name is Jacob Pond. And I did know your mom. I know she died because she did what she had to to keep you alive. She wouldn't want you to avenge her death if it killed you, and I promise, it will kill you."

It's unreasonable to hope that any of the arguments will work. A stranger's words wouldn't have stopped Sam back when he was young and hot-blooded, full of rage and hell-bent on revenge, so how can he, let alone Dean, expect to talk Jacob out of this?

He can't lose Dean. Sam absolutely _cannot_ lose his brother right now. He's barely coping with what he's already lost, and if either of them die now, he has no idea what'll happen to them.

"You have a choice, Jacob," Sam continues. "You can get your revenge and die tonight, or you can go live the life your mom would've wanted for you."

After a long silence, in which tears run down Jacob's face, he asks a question:

"Do you promise that if Dean lives, I live?"

"Yes."

The kitsune retracts the claws on the hand at Dean's throat, but he leans in, close to his ear and speaks so softly Sam barely makes it out:

"I let you live."

Sam slowly puts his gun away and takes a step forward.

Before he knows it, Jacob's other hand, hidden in shadow, is slashing upward, four deep cuts from Dean's waist to his chest.

Then the boy is gone, bushes rustling behind him.

Sam almost gives chase, but his brother, crumpling to the ground, needs him.

"Dean?" He kneels next to him. "Dean, stay with me. Stay with me."

"I'm fine. He didn't get anything important." Dean zips up his already bloodsoaked jeans before letting Sam look at the wounds.

"You're losing a lot of blood." Sam pulls his phone out again to call 911. "Shit..."

*

A few tense hours, one blood transfusion, and thirty-eight stitches later, Dean is discharged from the hospital.

"So, turns out kitsunes, male and female, can shapeshift into irresistibly beautiful women," Sam states after getting off the phone with New Bobby—it's the first time they've spoken since the man went off to hunt Jack. He tentatively offers Dean the keys to the Impala, but his brother shakes his head and gets into the passenger seat.

"I fucking knew they couldn't be real," Dean grumbles once Sam gets in the car.

"What?"

"You saw his rack."

Sam scoffs as he starts the car. Jacob's seductress form did have some amazing assets. He's going to try very hard to forget what it looked like and the thoughts it put into his head. He kissed the kid's mom in high school for fuck's sake.

"It was weird," Dean muses.

"What, the part when you realized hot women don't just lead you into the middle of the woods for a handjob?"

"Being the monster."

Sam looks at his brother, who continues:

"I was the guy who killed somebody's mom. I was wrong to. Killing Amy didn't save anyone. So, yeah, I was the monster, and he had every right to want me dead."

It's tough to know what to say when Sam almost agrees. If Dean was a stranger to him, he might not have known what to do after knowing the whole story. On the other hand...

"No, he didn't. You do a lot more good than bad. And I can't lose you now." He glances at Dean. "I'm serious. You have to be fucking careful, because if anything happens to you-" He shakes his head. He hasn't worked up the nerve to repeat Chuck's message to Dean, and even if that weren't a factor, just the thought of losing his brother is intolerable.

"Well, you, too," Dean answers quietly, and it makes Sam feel the way he felt when he heard his mom say _"I love you."_

The memory of her stings, and the other emotions that the encounter with Jacob dredged up are suddenly so overwhelming Sam has to pull over to the side of the road.

"...Sam?"

How long's it been—three, four weeks? Just weeks since they lost her. Less than one month ago he was used to speaking to his mom on a regular basis.

"Sammy?"

"I'm fine." Sam gets out of the car, blinking away tears. Everything is hurting more now because of losing Jack, but Mom...

Dean gets out too and they lean against the car, watching the stars disappear as the sun starts to light up the sky.

"I miss Mom," Sam finally says.

"Me, too."

"You don't get it. My entire life, I've never missed her because I didn't remember her. Even when she left us, even when she got pulled into that other world, I couldn't miss her. I wasn't... used to her being around. Things changed after you said yes to Michael. Now..." Sam is thirty-six years old and he's feeling and saying something for the first time, as if speaking a foreign language: _"I miss my mom._ "

He wipes the tears from his cheeks and tries to compose himself. He doesn't want to break down into miserable childish wails, not in front of his brother.

"...C'mere," Dean says after a moment.

Sam almost rejects it, knowing how close he is to breaking, but he's never said no to a hug from Dean in his life and he isn't going to start now.

***

In Sam's dream that night, Azazel almost gets caught when the girl wakes up from a nightmare. He vanishes before she notices.

She turns on the lamp next to her bed and sits up, hugging a teddy bear and looking terrified.

It's the first time Sam's gotten a good look at this girl, whose facial features seem vaguely familiar, but otherwise there's no physical attribute that significantly sets this girl apart from any other nine or ten year old. She's white, she has dark hair, her eyes are brown, she's neither thin nor fat... She couldn't possibly have been born before Azazel was killed. What is the demon's interest in her? What's allowing him to enter her room but forbidding him from harming her?


	3. The Big Winchester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean finally have reason to investigate the Winchester Mystery House, with some help from Rowena, but an awkward complication arises when a spell goes wrong.

In the depressingly long list of recent freaky, sudden deaths, one headline catches Dean's attention. He skims the article and texts a link to Sam, who's probably in the library.

Predictably, he's read half of it in the time it takes for Dean to get from his bedroom to the library.

"The Winchester Mystery House?" Sam says incredulously.

"We've never been."

"'Cause it's a tourist trap."

"It literally has our name on it, everyone thinks it's haunted, and somebody just died there."

"Okay, but how can it be haunted? Sarah Winchester believed that her family was haunted by the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles, which is impossible because those people died all around the country—around the world—and we've never _once_ met a ghost that cared about who made the murder weapon. They only care about the person who pulled the trigger. I bet no one's even died in that house other than her and now this guy."

"Then maybe we've got Sarah Winchester's ghost on our hands," Dean shrugs.

"There is no way that in the 96 years that building has been open to the public, some other hunter hasn't checked out the place already."

Dean knows exactly how to get his brother invested. He'll never resist his love for research:

"Maybe the Men of Letters have something on it."

Sam heads for the filing cabinet.

*

In fact, there's a whole case file on it, one that can be summed up with "there are no ghosts in the Winchester Mystery House," which is slightly disappointing to Dean. The matter was investigated by an Edward Winchester, no relation to the owners of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, probably some relation to Sam and Dean.

"See?" Sam says. "It's not haunted."

"That might've changed since Chuck released all those spirits." Dean makes his decision: "We're going to San Jose."

"We've got a hell of a lot more important things to do than spend days driving to California on a 'maybe.'"

"You made me drive to Massachusetts because of your serial killer fetish."

"That was a case."

"And this might be a haunting. Be in the car in five."

§§§

The first thing the Winchesters do upon arriving at the site is take a tour. Sam finds the mansion weird and creepy, but also pretty cool. Sarah Winchester was at least a little crazy but the building is like an abstract work of art.

Dean surreptitiously pulls out the EMF meter and when he turns it on, it goes insane.

The brothers look at each other in surprise. Something's going on here.

*

After the tour, Sam finds their guide taking a cigarette break outside. She'd made eye contact with him a few times on the tour.

"Hey," he greets. "Laura, right?"

She nods, checking him out.

"I'm Sam," he volunteers.

"You enjoy the tour, Sam?"

"Loved it." He smiles at her, and she returns the gesture with real warmth in her eyes. Sam continues, "All that stuff you said about hearing weird noises, stuff moving around... does that really happen?"

"Sure it does," she answers.

"Come on. I worked at a place like this once. You're just going off a script they give you, right? Nothing _actually_ supernatural happens here, does it?"

As hoped, she drops most of the tour guide facade.

"It never used to," she admits.

"What do you mean?"

"When you're new, they tell you about disembodied voices and other paranormal crap that's supposedly happened, even though nobody working here now has ever experienced it themselves. A few weeks back, things got weird."

"Weird how?"

"Everyone's been hearing stuff. Some people say rats, some people say a woman's voice, most people hear men's voices. Stuff's moving without anybody touching it."

"Men's voices? More than one?"

"You only ever hear one at a time, but there's at least a dozen. Half of them don't even speak English."

"I heard someone died here a few days ago."

"Still under investigation," Laura says quickly. "If this had happened before, I'd say it was just a horrible accident, but with the things I've seen and heard... I don't know, maybe there really are ghosts here. Maybe they want to hurt us."

"When exactly did this start?"

"Mid-April. The first thing I heard was a man's voice asking 'where am I?' I thought someone from a tour had gotten lost, but there was no one there."

"What else do they say?"

*

Between the EMF and Laura's account, it's clear that some of the spirits Chuck released were sent to the Winchester mansion.

"They're all just lost in that crazy house," Sam says to his brother. "It's like Chuck grabbed a bunch of random spirits and threw them in the Veil there, no rhyme or reason to it."

"Maybe they were all killed by Winchester rifles."

"Maybe. How are we supposed to take care of all of them?"

"We could start by finding out how many there are and what their deal is."

"And how do we do that? They're not strong enough to get through the Veil."

"I could go into the Veil again," Dean says.

Sam's own heart almost stops right then, no drugs needed.

"No. You're not doing that to me again."

"I'll be fine, Sam."

"If it's so safe, I'll do it," Sam argues.

"No way."

Sam raises his eyebrows to point out his brother's hypocrisy. Dean backs down.

"Okay, what are our other options?"

"Astral projection," Sam says decisively. "Rowena's got to have a spell."

*

The three of them sneak into the Winchester mansion after dark—between Sam and Dean's burgling skills and Rowena's magic, security isn't an issue.

They make their way to the third floor which is closed off to guests, and pick a room that clearly no one has entered in quite some time.

It's all been discussed beforehand—the spell, how long Rowena should wait, and how to let the witch know when to bring them back. The only words between them necessary are the spell, said once for Sam after he lies on the floor and again for Dean when he does the same.

*

Sam isn't surprised when his brother joins him in the Veil and is startled by the number of ghosts in the room.

"Son of a-"

Sam has already had a few seconds to determine that the spirits aren't quite "awake." They're just standing there creepily, staring into nothing. Like Laura said, it's mostly men, but there are a few women among them.

Once Dean realizes none of them are attacking, he takes the opportunity to poke Sam in the chest, because apparently watching his hand disappear in Sam's body is the most novel thing ever. He just stares at his older brother for a couple seconds.

"We need to get to work, Dean. Let's split up and find someone who'll talk to us."

*

There are ghosts in every single room, most standing there dumbly but others wandering around like they're lost. There's a couple Germans wearing World War I uniforms, Native Americans from at least four different tribes, cowboys... The first spirit Sam manages to communicate with is a woman who doesn't know what she's doing there because she died after being shot in 1888. She seems too shaken up to give him any more relevant information, so he thanks her and moves on. He can recognize a 19th-century prostitute and he can recognize someone who's been through something bad; he doesn't like to imagine why she was killed.

Next he meets a pair of men, evidently cowboys, who only speak Spanish. Through slow, halting conversation, he gets a couple details. They were killed in 1870.

Finally Sam finds a German soldier who also speaks fluent English, a casualty of World War I in 1917. Heinrich Schmidt is completely willing to share the information he has about the ghosts' presence after Sam lies through his teeth, telling him that Germany won The Great War.

Just as Sam is thanking Heinrich for his help, he gets yanked back into his body.

*

"Sam! Dean!"

Sam wakes up in a now freezing-cold room to see Rowena being attacked by a ghost, its hand plunged into her heart, so he grabs the shotgun next to him and fires a salt round. The ghost vanishes and Rowena falls to the floor.

"Rowena?" he says, which is when he notices something is wrong. His body feels wrong. His _voice_ is wrong; it sounds more like his brother's voice.

He turns to his left, where Dean should be, but Dean isn't there.

He turns to his right.

That's not Dean. That's _his_ body.

It turns to look at him.

"What are you doing in my body?" they demand of each other.

Then they pause.

"Son of a bitch..." the person in Sam's body asks. It sounds like a recording of Sam's voice imitating Dean and he hates it.

"...Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me." He coughs and feels Sam's throat, equally uncomfortable hearing the wrong voice.

"Rowena's hurt," Sam says, getting to his feet. Not his, per se, but they are his for the moment. His body is different from what he's used to. His hair is gone—well, very short. He's not quite as tall as he was.

The Winchesters go to their friend's side.

"... She's dead," Sam realizes after failing to find a pulse.

"What?!"

"I mean... for now. She's got that spell that brings her back."

"How long's it gonna take? I wanna get back into my body!"

"I don't know." It took months for her to show up again after Lucifer set her on fire. The ghost only stopped her heart, so it shouldn't be quite as long a wait this time, but Sam is eager to get back into his own body as well. "Let's just... work the job, figure out this body swapping thing whenever she wakes up."

"Work the job? Like _this_?"

"What choice do we have?"

Dean sighs.

"Okay, whaddya got?"

"All the ghosts I spoke to were brought here the night... you know. They're from around the world, from different years, different social classes. What they have in common is the cause of death."

"Lemme guess, gunshot wound?"

"Yep. What'd you find?"

"About the same. I also met the ghost who killed that guest the other day."

"The same one that just got Rowena?"

"No, this guy was just trying to communicate with somebody and accidentally stuck a piece of glass in their heart. He's a mess, but there are other spirits, pissed-off ones, that are gonna hurt people on purpose once they get strong enough."

"Did you recognize the one I shot just now?"

"No, but he had a sheriff's badge and he looked like he was from the Wild West."

Sam responds with sarcasm:

"Oh, alright, let's make a list of all the sheriffs who died up until 1905 from gunshot wounds. That'll narrow it down."

Dean ignores him, then asks thoughtfully:

"Hey, if these are all people killed by Winchester guns, where are all the Confederate soldiers? Didn't the North use those guns?"

"It only became the Winchester Repeating Arms Company after the war. The Union used Henry rifles, which were the gun Winchester rifles were based on."

After a long stare, Dean responds.

"...I never want to see or hear myself sound like that much of a nerd ever again."

Sam rolls his eyes.

"Look, these ghosts aren't attached to their bodies, and even if they were, we'd never find them all. We need to use some heavy duty stuff to clear all the ghosts out, like the mojo bags in the house in Lawrence."

When the brothers straighten up, Sam is disconcerted to find his own face looking down at him, slowly forming a grin that looks like it belongs on Dean's visage.

"I'm taller than you," Dean says, laughing.

"Real mature, Dean."

*

Dean almost trips once on the way out of the mansion, which would be funny if they weren't trying to subtly carry Rowena out without setting off any alarms.

He also hits his head as he gets into the car, which does make Sam chuckle.

"Quit laughing or the first thing I'm doing when we get to the motel room is giving you a haircut." Dean jams the key in the ignition and starts the car. He zooms off toward the motel.

Unfortunately, seeing his own face and body under someone else's control isn't new to Sam, but it is very weird being inside someone else's. Dean's body feels different in ways Sam didn't exactly expect. Some of his joints feel a little stiffer, and textures look... different.

"Dean, you need reading glasses."

"I do not."

"Stuff shouldn't be blurry like this."

"...Really?" Dean holds up Sam's hand and looks at it. "Whoa. HD vision."

"Have your eyes always been like this?"

"No, I just didn't think it'd gotten that bad."

"You're an old man, Dean."

*

Rowena is still very much dead when they get back to the motel, so they lay her out, put up the Do Not Disturb sign, and leave a note that says "CALL US ASAP" next to her pillow.

Meanwhile, Dean is growing frustrated with Sam's hair. He grabs a rubber band to put it up.

"Do _not_ use a rubber band on hair, Dean!" Sam tried it exactly once and just the memory of it ripping individual hairs from his scalp hurts.

"How do you live life like this? It gets in the way, I can't see anything!"

Sighing, Sam makes a confession:

"There's a hair thing in my wallet."

Dean finds the hair tie hidden deep in Sam's wallet.

Sam watches his brother think it over, considering the implications of keeping a hair tie next to a condom. Of course he keeps it there; asking a woman to borrow one of her hair ties is weird, even if she'll be more than repaid in a few minutes.

Dean fumbles a bit putting Sam's hair in a ponytail but he manages, and no more words are spoken about the matter.

*

They raid a rural crossroads and a Whole Foods for gris-gris bag ingredients, at which point it is broad daylight and they have to wait until night falls again to even hope to get back into the mansion undetected.

By that time, there's no ignoring the needs of their bodies. Sam finds that somehow even hunger is different for his brother—Dean's body goes from totally fine to utterly ravenous.

They go to a diner and each order what they would usually get. Sam is surprised when he takes a bite of salad and finds that while it tastes how he expected from its appearance and the quality of diner they're in, the flavor and texture is unpleasant.

They're not his tastebuds, are they?

Dean is having a similar revelation over his bacon cheeseburger. It shouldn't be gross like the salad, but it probably isn't eliciting the response he was expecting.

They exchange looks, and then wordlessly exchange plates. Sam has no issue eating a burger—he's been obliged to have one as a meal at least once a week his whole life and he doesn't dislike them normally—but Dean has to psych himself up to put a forkful of salad in his mouth.

His expression says it all—apprehension, then pleasant surprise, and acceptance. Maybe he'll stop giving Sam so much shit about his healthy eating habits.

Sam, meanwhile, has rarely enjoyed a burger on this level before. He didn't realize just how much Dean _loves_ burgers, even mediocre ones. This explains a lot, he thinks.

*

The next weird moment is right before they get on the road again, when both need to use the restroom.

Sam feels incredibly awkward, but Dean dismisses it.

"I used to change your diapers, Sam," he points out as they head for urinals as far apart as possible which is stupid considering the situation but the guy code doesn't stop applying just because they're in each other's bodies. "Holding it's better than wiping your-"

Sam turns his head and sees Dean looking at his crotch.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing."

This shouldn't really be that big of a deal; they walk around motel rooms naked, piss with the door open, and accidentally interrupt... things. It's just that they've kept their eyes averted on all those occasions.

Without looking, Sam opens not-his fly and takes out not-his dick. He only glances down long enough to aim and then stares at the ceiling trying not to think about what he's touching. On the other hand, he now has a guess as to what shocked Dean into silence.

As they both wash their hands a few moments later, Sam can't resist the urge to make a remark:

"You must be a grower."

Although Dean is visibly indignant, another patron enters the restroom before he can think of a comeback.

*

In the motel room, Rowena is still to all appearances dead. The Winchesters spare glances at her occasionally as they assemble sixteen mojo bags, but for now there's nothing to do but keep working.

"How are we supposed to know the north, east, west, and south corners of the house for each floor?" Dean asks. "The place is a maze, and Rowena can't help us sneak around again."

"We need someone who knows the place..."

Dean snaps his fingers.

"The tour guide. She was into you. And she thinks it's really haunted, right? You could straight-up tell her what we're doing and she'd probably help."

"Yeah, but as long as I'm wearing your face, I can't ask her. You'd have to do it."

"And pretend to be you?" Dean looks disgusted. "How?"

Although Sam likes Laura enough to go on a date with her, he doesn't want Dean to try to pick her up.

"Pretend she's someone you wanna hook up with, but that her parents are watching and listening to everything you say and do."

His brother gets the idea and nods.

"What if _she_... y'know?"

" _Pretend her parents are watching._ "

*

Dean heads out with the mojo bags, leaving Sam alone with Rowena's body. He's troubled that she hasn't revived yet. He assumed she had her magical failsafe, but maybe for some reason it's not working.

Is this really it, Sam wonders as he tries to look up body-swapping spells on his own, is this how Rowena dies? They were both still very conscious that he is supposedly fated to kill her, but maybe that went out the window after he shot Chuck. Maybe she changed her fate somehow.

He doesn't know why he would hurt her. She is their friend. She's not the same person she was five years ago, conniving and power-hungry. She might not be a paragon of virtue, but she's on their side now.

A terrible thought occurs to Sam.

If he killed her now, that would be indisputably wrong. It would be _evil_. Surely it would be evil enough to get sent to Hell, and that would ensure that Dean goes to Heaven.

And now is the perfect time because when she wakes up—if she wakes up—she'll be vulnerable.

Sam pushes the thought away, or tries to, but it's the repulsive nature of the idea that makes it perfect. That act of betrayal would save Dean. As horrible as it is to consider, the life of a friend isn't too high a price to pay for his brother's salvation.

*

About half an hour after Dean leaves, Rowena takes a gasping breath and stirs.

"Rowena!" Sam goes over to her, he helps her sit up. "Are you alright? Do you need anything?"

She looks at him a bit oddly.

"Some water, perhaps?"

"Sure." Sam gets her a glass of water.

"Where's Sam?" she asks after taking a sip. 

"...Oh, right. Um... I'm right here. Something went wrong with the spell when you brought us back. I'm in Dean's body, and he's in mine."

"Impossible! I'm a professional, things don't 'go wrong' with my spells!"

"Well, something switched us."

Rowena thinks on it for a moment.

"Witchcraft does require a calm state of mind, and I was panicking a bit when I brought you back," she admits. "But ending two astral projection spells at the same time shouldn't make you switch bodies unless there's some sort of bond between you."

"We're brothers," Sam points out.

"No, not blood. A spiritual bond." She looks at Sam, questioning.

"Like... being soulmates?" he suggests.

"That would do it, aye."

"Okay. ...Do you think you could help us switch back?"

Rowena looks offended.

"I was just ambushed and murdered by a ghost, Samuel. You can find your own body-swapping spell in that library of yours." Rowena finishes her water and gets to her feet.

"I'm sorry," Sam tries as she gathers her things. She certainly doesn't owe them her help. "Is there anything we can do?"

Sighing, the witch sets her purse back down. She's gotten soft when it comes to the Winchesters.

"I can fix it, if you'll let me borrow some spell ingredients from your bunker for my own use."

"Of course."

Sam doesn't want to hurt her. It's an insane, evil thing to do. He just doesn't know what the hell else to do to make absolutely certain his brother doesn't go to Hell.

§§§

Dean returns from the Winchester Mystery House feeling very satisfied. Laura was completely willing to help 'Sam' put the mojo bags in all the corners of the mansion on all the floors after learning they would banish the ghosts. 'Sam' could have hooked up with her somewhere on the fourth floor, but Dean successfully resisted temptation without outright rejecting her.

When he comes into the room, he finds Sam poring over some witchy-looking website on his tablet.

"Mission accomplished."

"You got Laura to help you?"

"Yeah. Oh, and, if we get switched back before leaving San Jose, you could still get laid."

Sam gives his brother a concerned look.

"I didn't even kiss her. Cross my heart," Dean reassures him. He nods at the bed, where Rowena is still laying. "No change?"

Sam looks at her for a few seconds.

"No," he says, hardly louder than a whisper.

"Shit... Tell me you've got something."

"Yeah, uh... the spell that kid Gary used on me, like ten years ago? The Men of Letters gotta have it somewhere."

"Alright, how long do we give Rowena before we head back?"

Again, Sam goes quiet. He's close to Rowena. Maybe even closer to her than he was to Mom. Losing her would hurt.

"If we're done here, let's just take her to the bunker now."

*

Within thirty minutes of returning to the bunker, Sam and Dean locate and cast the spell they need and are returned to their bodies.

They trade sighs of relief. That was one of the weirdest three days of their lives.

*

The brothers give Rowena another two days before deciding she's not coming back. It sucks; especially for Sam who's incredibly guilty about calling her in to help. At one point Dean even hears Sam talking in his sleep, repeating "I'm sorry," over and over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can someone who grew up in the Midwest tell me what Sam and Dean would call a hair elastic/hair tie?


	4. The Handcuff Trick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ghost of John Wayne Gacy is back, and he knows that Sam is the one who burned the cigar box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: [Threat of] sexual assault, plus immediate emotional after-effects thereof.

The light in the young girl's bedroom is on; she's doing homework at her desk, oblivious to the demon watching her.

Her name is written on top of the page, but Sam can only make out part of it:

_Emily Rol_

***

Sam wakes up handcuffed to a wall, naked, with some kind of cloth stuffed in his mouth. He's groggy; something knocked him out.

He's got a name, finally, Emily Rol-something, and he has to hang onto that, but it's more important right now to remember why he's in this humiliating and terrifying predicament that literally stinks of death.

What happened? He and Dean were looking into the missing teenage boys in Chicago. There are so many, just in the last couple weeks, that he and Dean had to split up to talk to the families. He rented a car. He had four addresses. The first house, no one came to the door even though there was a car in the driveway and lights on. The second, he didn't learn anything particularly useful. The third... he learned something. The mom, she was weirdly superstitious—not that she was wrong to be—and she lamented the fact that her son had a friend who lived on West Berwyn Avenue, because just one road over is West Summerdale Avenue.

It all clicked then—the location, the disappearances, all of it Sam said goodbye and drove straight to 8213 West Summerdale Avenue.

Except now it's 8215. The address was changed, but it's the same spot upon which once stood the house of John Wayne Gacy, the killer clown.

The house held 26 victims buried in the crawlspace; three more were buried elsewhere on the property.

Gacy's spirit must have returned as well, and since he isn't tethered to his cigar box anymore, he's free to return to the property he once owned and resume his typical M.O.—boys between the ages of 14 and 21, tricked into coming to his house and never seen again.

Sam remembers it all now. He was sitting outside in his car and was thinking he should call his brother, then he felt a chill and saw his breath.

Then everything went dark, and now...

He has a horrible feeling that he might actually die tonight, because he was a fucking idiot and got so excited about stopping the ghost of a serial killer, again, that he drove over here before telling Dean.

Almost as clearly as he remembers the events of earlier today, Sam can recall the night some years ago that he was trying to look up violent deaths in the area where they were working a job. He ended up on Wikipedia, and while scanning the page he was startled to see his brother's name, in connection to a "grave desecration" a couple towns over.

Dean's name was in blue, so Sam clicked, and discovered that both he and Dean are listed as serial killers.

That was how it started. He started reading about serial killers in general, about Dahmer, Bundy, Borden, Holmes, and all the rest. His and Dean's supposed peers. Now his brother teases him and calls it a fetish, as if Dean doesn't have weird interests that are _actually_ sexual fetishes.

This fascination is what led him to this, and Sam wishes he'd never learned about serial killers. He wishes he had never heard of John Wayne Gacy and he wishes so very much he didn't know what Gacy did to his victims.

Because it's bad enough that he's cuffed naked to a wall, but Sam also has a very good idea of what's about to happen to him. Although he's twice the age of Gacy's victims, he is the one who burned the cigar box back in Lebanon, so the spirit probably has it out for him. This may be the worst thing to physically happen to him outside of Hell.

Which is where he's going now, so... if he doesn't get out of these handcuffs and Dean doesn't find him in time, the rest of Sam's existence is going to be pain and misery.

That's an interesting thought to have, that he is at a point in his existence where he has already had the best day of his life, had the best sex he'll ever have, eaten the most delicious food he'll ever consume, seen his brother smile for the last time, and everything is going to be bad from now on. He hadn't had time to reflect on that the last time he knew he was going to Hell.

As much as it is motivation to escape by any means necessary, Sam remains calm. He knows where Dean is going when he dies; that's all that matters. He can accept pretty much anything if it means his brother is safe.

The temperature in the room drops, and Gacy appears in front of Sam.

He's in the clown suit. The fucking _clown suit_ , with makeup and everything.

Every shred of composure drains away. Sam tries to shout for help, but can't make much sound through the gag. All he can do is struggle as the higher functions of his brain shut down in the face of his abject terror. It doesn't matter what damage he does to his own body. He has to get away, _now_. Break the bones in his hands, pull the wood from the wall, whatever it takes to get away from the clown.

He's surprised that it's the flesh of his hand that starts to give way first rather than the nails holding the lumber on the wall, but he then finds that some other force is keeping him there.

He can't escape. He's trapped, blood trickling down his arm, and this clown, a fucking clown of all things, is going to torture and rape him, and then kill him.

Dean will never find him in time. 

His brother will find this place eventually, sure, but Sam will just be a naked, mutilated corpse with tear tracks on his cold dead face because the level of psychological horror and physical pain he's anticipating are on a Cage level and he doesn't want to go back there. Not to a place where there's nothing he can do to make the torture stop because his torturer is doing it for sheer pleasure.

 _Someone please help,_ he prays in his head.

*

An hour later, Sam's body is limp. He's tried so hard to scream through his gag that his throat hurts. So far it's been mostly burns and cuts, but he can _sense_ the sexual malevolence in the air and he knows it's only a matter of time.

He had shut his eyes at first and told himself it wasn't real, it wasn't happening, but Sam has done more than his fair share of learning to determine reality versus hallucination and he can't keep lying to himself.

He can't keep his eyes closed because it makes him see Lucifer, but having his eyes open means he has to look at a clown that's doing bad things to him and wants to do an even worse thing.

Sam wishes he could shout his brother's name, because no matter how bad things get, the sound of Dean's name gives him hope. It would be a relief if he could just scream that one syllable and _imagine_ Dean hearing it and saving him from what's surely about to happen. He doesn't even have the chance to dream of being rescued. Dean might retrace his steps, figure out that West Summerdale Avenue meant something, but will he figure it out in time?

He knows it's going to happen when there's a pause in the physical trauma. All he can do is watch as the ghost takes out his-

Torture isn't new to Sam, torture from a clown would mess him up but he'd get over it. But this? He isn't sure he'd even want to live through this. It's a _fucking clown,_ and it's going to do things that Lucifer did, things that Sam could lock away because memories from Hell are different but now the violation is going to happen in real life.

The spirit is touching Sam's legs. He's going to force them apart and-

Out of nowhere comes a shotgun blast and Gacy's ghost disappears.

Sam looks around, confused. There's Dean, standing in the doorway with his gun, with the most horrified and enraged look on his face Sam can remember seeing in a long time.

"Fuck," is all Dean can say at first as he goes to Sam. "Jesus _fucking_ Christ..." He pulls out the gag and cradles Sam's face. "Sammy?"

Closing his eyes, Sam leans into his brother's touch and just breathes. He's safe.

"Let's get you out of here," Dean says as he goes for the handcuffs. When there's no verbal response, he prods, "Sam?"

He looks at Dean. When Sam's in over his head, Dean saves him. Every time. How can he not love and worship his brother?

"Sammy, say something. Tell me you're okay."

He wishes he could at least lie, set Dean's mind at ease as thanks for rescuing him, but he can't. He can't even use his own words when he manages to string together an answer:

"'I'm pretty fucking far from okay.'"

Though he certainly didn't expect to make his brother smile, it's a surprise when Dean only looks at him in concern, close to tears.

"You're going to the hospital." He's got one cuff open and he gets to work on the other one, the one that Sam tore his hand open on.

Sam shakes his head.

"I don't need the hospital."

As worried as Dean is, he relents.

*

In the car, Sam lets his brother put a blanket around his shoulders. He leans against the door, trying to make himself small, hidden.

Part of him recognizes that he's suffering from acute shock, and he just needs a little time, but most of his body is telling him that there is danger everywhere.

"You're gonna need stitches," Dean says as he gets back on the road, nodding at Sam's hand, wrapped in a handkerchief.

"I know."

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Dean then asks:

"Sam, did he, uh... do anything else to you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yeah, 'cause I need to know if you have injuries I didn't see."

"...No. He was about to, but you showed up." Sam thinks he should probably consider himself lucky; some of the victims' corpses were found with prescription bottles in their pelvic regions. He was cut, burnt, and bruised, experienced the immediate threat of sexual assault, but he wasn't sodomized, and that's something. Physically, he has actually experienced worse than this. It's the clown thing fucking him up, but it's nothing time and heavy drinking won't heal. A lot of drinking. Like, right now.

"Well, if anything did happen, you've gotta tell someone," Dean says. "Cass, or... a doctor, I dunno."

"I just said nothing happened."

"That's exactly what _I_ would say if I didn't want you to know a ghost put his dick in my ass." He glances at Sam.

"He didn't put _anything_ in my ass."

"I believe you," Dean insists. "Just saying... if that kind of thing ever happened to you, you need to tell somebody."

Sam appreciates the gesture, the rare "it's okay if you tell someone else and don't tell me," that he himself is often too jealous to grant Dean, but thanking his brother aloud would be like an admission.

"How'd you find me?" he asks Dean to change the subject.

"Your phone. The GPS?"

"...Oh." Sam completely forgot about that. He lost most of his rational thought when Gacy's spirit showed up.

"How do we take care of him this time?" Dean asks. "That's not his original house, right? So he's connected to the property. We can't salt and burn an entire plot of land."

"He's trapping boys in the house and probably hiding the bodies there, too. If we burn the house down, maybe he won't be able to hurt anyone anymore."

"With the bodies still inside?"

"Those boys died violent deaths. Those bodies _need_ to be burned."

"That's nine families who might never know what happened to their kids."

"I don't like it either, Dean, but that's better than more people dead in a few months or years when those kids' ghosts get angry, and honestly, if I were them I'd rather not know what happened to my kid than find out they went through what Gacy did to them."

"Arson it is."

*

Sam doesn't protest or even feel embarrassed when Dean helps him get into the shower, but maybe that's the whiskey he drank as soon as they returned to the motel. He shivers under the hot spray. Still in shock.

"We've gotta head back before he grabs someone else," Sam says as he gets dressed afterward.

"No, _I'm_ heading back there," Dean says. "You're staying here."

"You shouldn't go alone."

"I'll be fine. I wasn't the one who burned the cigar box."

Sam is frustrated, but the idea of not going back to that house is such a relief when he considers it. Besides, if Dean gets caught setting a house on fire, he'll need Sam to bail him out.

*

When Dean leaves with salt and a tank of gasoline, he tells Sam to wait one hour before getting worried.

Sam sets a timer on his phone as soon as Dean drives off. He's giving his brother 45 minutes to call and say it's done.

Hardly a minute after Dean drives off, Sam abruptly remembers his vision.

Emily. The girl's name is Emily. Emily Rol-something.

He pulls out his laptop and starts making a list of possible surnames. Sure, it's gonna be tough finding a pre-teen with just a name, but he has to start somewhere. Unfortunately, thousands of random social media profiles, which she shouldn't even have at her age, is that starting place.

The only surname on the top 1000 surnames in the US that starts with Rol is Rollins, but he also makes note of Roland and about four spelling variations each on Rolf and Role.

He doesn't really expect to find her, but he can't leave any stone unturned. Whoever this girl is, he has to find her before Azazel finds a way to do whatever it is he's trying to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I love me some H/C Sam'n'Dean, this better not happen in canon because Chuck has already put Sam through basically every variety of sexual assault/non-con sketchiness out there. :(


	5. Shell-Shocked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alternate Kaia Nieves wants the Winchesters to make good on their deal—return the spear and send her back to her universe.

Dean keeps an eye on his brother for a couple weeks. While the disappearances stopped after he burned down the house, technically Gacy's spirit is still out there, and Dean can tell that gives Sam the creeps.

He notices the whiskey disappearing a lot faster than it used to, and Sam seems to tag along after him more often than before. He's jumpy, tense.

So, Dean is relieved to see his brother get better with time. Whatever happened to him, it gets compartmentalized like the rest of his life's trauma and Sam manages to relax a little, though it still seems like he's hiding something.

*

Dean finally feels comfortable leaving his brother alone to get groceries, but when he reaches the little market in the center of Lebanon, he wishes he had Sam with him, because Other Kaia is waiting for him near the door.

He gets out of the car and approaches her.

"I want my spear," she greets.

"I can get it for you." What's left of it is in the bunker; they managed to snag the pieces when they retrieved the Impala from the hotel parking lot.

"And the boy?"

"...Dead."

"Then how are you going to send me back to my home?"

"There's a spell we can use to open a door. We just need to get one ingred-" Before Dean finishes his sentence, there's a blinding flash of light.

§§§

_Sam loaded a single witch-killing bullet into his gun. Rowena was talking and her back was turned—she trusted him—so she didn't notice anything. She didn't hear him click off the safety._

_She didn't even look up as he approached her from behind._

_She trusted him._

_He aimed for her heart. He didn't want to. He didn't want to hurt a woman whom he was honestly closer to than his own mother, but this murder is so certain to damn him to Hell, it guarantees Dean's salvation._

_One act of pure evil, and Sam could know that his brother is going where he belongs._

_It was for Dean._

*

Stop it. Sam shakes his head to rid himself of the memory. He did what he had to. He saved Dean, even though he can never know. 

Where is his brother anyway, he wonders. Dean's been gone for an awfully long time for grocery shopping.

A moment later, his phone rings. Dean.

"What's up?" he greets.

_"Sammy, we've got a problem."_

"What kind of problem?"

_"Kaia."_

"Spear Kaia?"

_"She wants to go home. You need to bring the spear and all the spell ingredients."_

"Dean, we don't have any archangel grace."

_"You and Cas are gonna have to figure something out."_

"Where are you?"

_"With Kaia. I'll call back in two days."_

"...Dean, are you alright?"

_"I'm fine. The, uh, car, though, it's outside the grocery store. Go get her before somebody rams her with a shopping cart."_

"Where the hell are you?"

_"It's okay, Sam. Just get the stuff."_

The call ends.

"Shit."

Kaia has Dean, and to get him back Sam needs a spear that's currently in two pieces and an ingredient for which there is only one source left in this universe.

He calls Castiel, who promises to be at the bunker in two hours. That's two hours for Sam to panic when attempts to locate Dean with his phone GPS fail and he starts to wonder how much danger Dean is in.

*

"She promised to _kill_ him?!" Sam feels a rush of fear, but it comes out as anger: "Why the fuck didn't you tell me before?"

"Dean didn't want you to worry," Cas tries.

"How's that working out now?" Sam snaps. He could punch the angel, he's so frustrated and upset. He was just starting to feel normal again, just starting to believe he could relax and forget about what that ghost almost did to him, and now there's a new source of panic, a very real possibility that Dean will be killed if Sam can't get his hands on some archangel grace.

"We need Michael," he says to Castiel. "We need to get his grace without letting him out of the Cage."

"That will be difficult without his consent."

"Then we'll get his consent."

"How?"

"Lucifer was able to send me visions from the Cage after Amara was freed because it was damaged. If he could get messages out, there's gotta be a way we can get messages in."

"We should go to the convent where the final seal was broken. It's one of the openings to the Cage."

"We don't have time to go to Maryland. We'll go to Stull. That's the last place it was opened."

*

It's a tense, grim drive to Stull Cemetery with Cas.

As Sam pulls through the gates and finally cuts the engine, he shudders.

This place has no good memories. There was triumph, yes, but only after almost killing Dean.

The worst thing about falling into the Cage was not knowing if Dean would make it out of the cemetery, not being sure that Dean wouldn't just sit there against the car until he died.

Lucifer got to taunt him with that for centuries. ( _"You know he's dead. You killed your brother, Sam."_ _"No,"_ Sam would say, but the Devil kept talking. _"He died there. The crows ate his rotting flesh and now he's just bones." "No!"_ )

Shaking his head to rid himself of the memories, again, Sam gets out of the car. Donatello is supposed to meet them here, but he won't arrive for another hour or two. In the meantime, Sam must face the setting of one of his recurring nightmares.

It's gotten better since they killed Lucifer, but it's still woken him up a couple times in recent months, a dream in which he can't stop Lucifer in time and only gets control back after the final, fatal blow. Dean dies in his arms.

As he looks around, Sam spies something unfamiliar.

"Cass, what the hell is that?"

The angel furrows his brow.

"Whatever it is, it's heavily warded."

The two of them creep closer to what looks like Adam Milligan, Michael's vessel.

The figure is sitting in the grass with its knees drawn up to its chest like a scared child. Moss has started to grow on the shoes, jacket, and jeans where they touch the ground. Birds have perched on its head, shoulders, and knees, evidenced by their droppings.

Its eyes are open, staring blankly.

Sam crouches a couple feet away from it. It isn't breathing, but it looks just like his half-brother.

"Warded enough to hide an archangel?"

"Perhaps, but if Michael escaped the Cage, we should have noticed."

Sam thinks as he studies the figure before him. Lucifer said prison life hadn't agreed with Michael, in a way that heavily implied that Lucifer himself was responsible. This archangel, if he's present, is probably in a similar position to Sam when the wall in his mind came down. Chuck Himself described him as being in no condition to fight. It's very possible that the Cage was opened when all the ghosts were freed, and Michael has simply been hiding since then.

"Michael," he says, putting prayerful intention into the words, "it's Sam Winchester. Lucifer is dead. You're not in the Cage anymore. You're safe. I need to talk to you."

His half-brother moves for the first time, just his eyes moving to lock on to Sam's face.

"Lucifer's dead?" he asks.

Cas takes a step back, startled. Sam wishes he had moved away too when Michael reaches out to hold his face with bird shit-encrusted hands.

He can empathize with the relief in the archangel's eyes, though, at the thought of being safe. The Cage will remain in nightmare and memory.

"So he can't hurt any of us anymore?" Michael smiles, an unhinged grin made crazier by the rest of his appearance.

"No, he can't. Are you... okay? Seems like you've been sitting here for a while."

"The Cage opened a couple months ago and I found myself here. I didn't want Lucifer to find me, so I warded myself."

"Are you aware that there are fewer than twenty angels left?" Castiel asks. "Heaven's power is failing; they _need_ an archangel."

"Where's Raphael?"

"Raphael's been dead for years. You're the only archangel left."

"That's why we're here," Sam puts in. He's a little frustrated that Cas is talking about Heaven and angels. Dean's life is at stake. "I need archangel grace for a spell. If we could make some kind of a deal-"

"You want my grace?"

"Yes."

Michael seems to think that over for a while.

"It's dangerous giving archangel grace to humans."

"I swear, it's only for a spell to return someone to their universe. We won't use it for anything else."

The archangel stares into nothing as he considers it.

"...Is Adam in there?" Sam tries next.

"Adam? He's here, but I can't let him out. He might remember. I can't let him remember."

"Remember what?"

"The Cage, of course."

When Sam doesn't reply right away, Michael elaborates:

"After you left," he says, "Lucifer was very angry. He wanted to hurt Adam like he hurt you, but my Father told us to protect and serve humans. I wanted to be a good son, and I only had one human left, so I tried to protect him, but I couldn't." Michael starts to cry. "I was meant to defeat my brother, but without my true vessel, I was overpowered. In the Cage, Lucifer is God."

Swallowing hard, Sam pushes away the bad memories.

"I know," he says, "but now he's dead, so you don't have to worry about him anymore."

"Good. I can stay here and keep Adam safe. He's living in a happy dream with his mother and his girlfriend. I like watching him. He has a two year old daughter and a cat."

"Why don't you let your vessel go?" Cas asks. "The angels need your leadership. You don't need a vessel in Heaven."

"I'm not a leader anymore, and Adam is happy."

"You don't need to be a leader. Naomi will lead them. They just need your power to keep the souls from falling."

That seems to get through to him.

"...I'll consider it."

"What about your grace? May we... have some of it?" Sam tries.

"If you swear to tell no one that I'm here and never to come back."

"Deal," Sam says before Cas can try to argue. "Give us a second."

The two of them retreat to the car; the grace extraction syringe is in the trunk.

"He shouldn't be left alone here," Castiel says. "He's unstable."

"He's not going anywhere."

"And your brother Adam?"

"Can you look inside his head, see if he's telling the truth?"

"...I suppose."

"Then after we get the grace, tell him we want proof that Adam is happy." Although Sam is concerned about Adam, that pales in comparison to how vital it is that he gets the archangel grace, that he saves Dean.

He takes the syringe and brings it back to Michael.

"This might hurt a little," he says.

Michael just looks at him, and Sam realizes with a jolt that Lucifer probably said those words, too, the same way he'd say them to Sam.

He kneels next to Michael and inserts the needle. He slowly draws out the grace, keeping his eyes on Michael.

It's very quiet.

When Sam is done, he removes the needle and gives the archangel a nod.

"Thank you."

Cas heals the extraction site, more a polite gesture than out of any actual need on Michael's part, but then keeps his fingers on Adam's head.

"May I see this dream you have Adam in?"

Michael doesn't answer, just hugs his knees to his chest again and lets his face go blank again.

Apparently having gained permission, Castiel closes his eyes, searching.

After about thirty seconds, he opens his eyes again.

"Adam is at peace."

*

Sam is shaken by the encounter with Michael. He didn't need reminders of his time in the Cage, not so soon after the traumatic experience with Gacy's spirit. Not when his nerves were already raw from having to hide the sin he committed. Not when he's scared to death that Kaia will kill Dean for returning her spear broken.

*

They meet a few miles outside Lebanon. Kaia is waiting with Dean when they arrive at an old, rundown hunter's cabin.

Dean's clearly been drugged to keep him from escaping, but physically he looks okay.

"We have everything we need to open a portal to your world," Sam says. "We just need something that's been there. A lock of hair, something small."

Kaia pulls a couple hairs from her head.

"Give me my spear."

"...Michael broke it, but we have the pieces," he says, taking them from the trunk.

Kaia scowls, but to Sam's surprised relief, she accepts the two pieces and hands over her hair.

"I can repair it when I return to my world."

As Sam casts the spell, Kaia unties Dean.

Once the portal opens, she gives them a nod and steps through with the two pieces of her spear.

Sam uses the Seal of Solomon to close the rift, and breathes a sigh of relief. One more loose end tied up.

But how many more to go?

*

Heading home, Dean is shocked to hear that Michael has been sitting in Stull Cemetery for two months, but trusts Sam's decision to leave the archangel alone.

"Hey, uh... can I ask you something about the Cage?"

"You can ask," Sam says, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Did Michael... y'know...?"

Hurt him? Torture him? Destroy him like Lucifer did? Sam supplies in his head.

"He was pissed at first. For a while, taking it out on me was something he and Lucifer had in common. One day, they had an argument. It had something to do with how to torture me. After that, I never saw or heard from him again." Sam doesn't know how he can recount that so calmly, but he's glad that Dean only gives a little nod of acknowledgement before changing the subject:

"...We still need milk, don't we."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah that was super anticlimactic, but Michael will return eventually.


	6. In The Family Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After three men turn up dead from the same cause, Sam and Dean suspect a siren, but the motive isn't what they expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Almost dub-con + flashbacks. (Sam can't catch a break even from writers who are aware he suffers from a disproportionate amount of sexual harassment/assault.)

"Okay, this is a weird one, even for us," Sam admits, looking over the autopsy reports of the three men. "What the fuck _does_ this?"

"Beats me." Dean shudders.

This is a particularly gross case. Three vics over the past two months, guys who died from bleeding out through their rectum after sudden rapid weight gain. The idea of a kappa had occurred to them (kappas do... things to people's asses) but Bobby ruled it out for them.

Maybe it's not their kind of thing, but Sam has a feeling something supernatural is behind it.

They can't tell what links the three men. They didn't know each other. At least two of them were openly gay, but the third had been married to women twice.

*

After some legwork, Sam and Dean discover a pattern: all three victims had met someone in the past few weeks whom they'd completely fallen for, and been in an intense, whirlwind romance, only for their new partner to disappear suddenly about a week before their victim's death. Then Sam gets a call from the mortician who found something unusual about the victims' blood.

"Well, we're probably dealing with a siren," Sam tells Dean after hanging up.

"Oxytocin?"

"Yep. But the M.O.'s all wrong. These guys aren't killing anyone."

"Maybe this one gets their kicks killing their boyfriend instead of watching their boyfriend kill for them. The lore says they'd get sailors to drown trying to swim to them, right?"

"That doesn't really explain the weight gain."

After a minute, Dean poses an unsettling question:

"Sam, how do you think sirens... make more sirens?"

He frowns, thinking.

"I dunno. Why?"

"What if they don't use women?"

"What?"

"What if they get men pregnant?"

It's an alarming thought.

"Why? How?"

"I don't know, I'm just spitballing here. These guys fell in love with the perfect man, gained a bunch of weight real fast, then died bleeding out of their asses. It fits, right?"

"Dean..." Sam wants to protest and say men can't get pregnant unless they were born with a uterus, but after everything they've seen, it's a waste of breath. "Okay, maybe, but how the hell do we find him? Or her?"

"Let's find out where the vics all met their dream guys."

*

Mentally exhausted from working on the case, Dean goes out to grab dinner and Sam turns his attention back to finding Emily whatever-her-name-is, combing through web results hoping for a mention or reference from a parent or relative.

Then it hits him:

Maybe it wasn't an L. What he thought was an L could have been a lowercase B, H, or K. Or even a weirdly written T or F.

There are a lot more possible names now—Robinson, Roberts, Robertson, Robles, Robbins, Roth, Rotti, Roke... Sam will have to try them all, no matter how many dead ends he has to wade through.

Miraculously, the name Emily Roberts finally turns up a potential match: about a year ago, a third grader from Iowa won a regional spelling bee with the word "eucalyptus." She was competing against fifth graders.

Third grade a year ago would be fourth grade now, going into fifth in fall, which would make her about nine or ten this year. That's the right age, Sam thinks excitedly. Maybe he's found her.

Then Sam keeps scrolling, and there's a picture of Emily.

That's her, that's the girl he's been seeing.

Then he looks at the other faces in the photo, and he recognizes another one:

Dr. Cara Roberts, at one time the lone M.D. for the small town briefly plagued by Sam and Dean's first siren.

It's good to see that at least one person Sam has slept with is still alive a decade later, and even has a very intelligent daughter who wins spelling bees against older kids.

That's actually convenient, he thinks. He won't have to try to track down a nine year old girl like a total creep or even manufacture an excuse to meet her. He can find Cara on some other pretext and act like he had no idea she has a kid now.

Sam doesn't know why Azazel has chosen this girl, but it doesn't matter. The demon has to be stopped from whatever it is he wants to do.

*

Although Sam would like to drop everything and speed off to Iowa, he won't leave Dean alone on a case like this. If it is a siren, there's a good chance it will get at least one of them under its spell—the first time it was both of them, last time it was Dean—and if it's not a siren, they don't know what the hell it is.

Dean returns with pizza and sodas soon after Sam makes his breakthrough discovery, smiling a familiar smile.

"You're not seriously going on a date when there's a siren in town?" Sam asks.

"All the vics have been gay guys," Dean dismisses, "Plus, I've been hit by a siren twice and both times he was you with a better haircut. Courtney, a _woman_ , is nothing like you."

"If I have to stab you with a bronze dagger later, I'm gonna say I told you so."

*

Shortly after Dean leaves, there's a knock on the door. Sam checks the peephole and sees an unfamiliar man waiting.

He's... really good-looking, Sam thinks. He can't explain it; he just knows that this stranger can be trusted.

He opens the door.

"Hi," he greets.

"Hey, I'm Will."

"Sam."

"Sam, you alone right now?"

"Yeah. Why don't you come in?"

Sam lets Will into the room and closes the door. Though he's aware that this is unusual, that he wouldn't normally do this, he's just so _taken_ by this person. It's not exactly sexual, but Sam's always thought that if he met the right person, their sex or gender wouldn't matter. Love is love, right? If Will wants something from him, he can have it.

"To be honest," Will says, "I wasn't expecting you, I was going for the other guy."

"Other guy?"

"Whoever brought your food."

"Oh, that was my brother Dean." Sam is worried. Is Will going to abandon him for Dean?

"Your brother? So there's no one special in your life?"

"No."

Will sits on the bed and pats the space next to him.

Sam accepts the invitation. He doesn't shy away when Will's hand rests on his thigh.

"Would you like me to be that special someone, Sam?"

"...I don't know if that's a good idea. Everyone I've been with, they've gotten hurt because of me. I don't want that to happen to you, too."

"You don't need to worry about me, Sam. I can take care of myself."

"Then... yes."

"So, you'll do anything for me?"

"Yes."

"Will you carry my child?"

That's the ultimate expression of love, Sam thinks. That will show Will how important he is to Sam.

"How?"

"First, you have to trust me. Once you conceive, it's going to grow quickly. You might feel sick, but you cannot go to a doctor or tell anyone that you're pregnant. You have to keep it a secret to keep our child safe."

Sam nods. He can imagine his brother having a problem with it. Dean gets jealous.

"I can do that."

"So you'll do it?"

"Yes."

"Will you get on your knees for me?"

Immediately, Sam does so, resting his hands on Will's thighs. Although he isn't aroused himself, he can't wait to pleasure his new love.

There's a bulge in the man's pants, and it trips off something in Sam's head, something _bad_. He ignores it because he loves Will.

Then Will unzips his pants and takes out his cock.

Sam inhales sharply and pulls away. The handcuffs, the clown, the smell of death, the fear-

"Sam? What's wrong?"

§§§

Dean says good night to Courtney and leaves her house. That was weird.

They were chatting a little before getting busy and she mentioned her age—twenty-one. Dean looked at her and for the first time in his life realized a woman was too young for him in a way other than legally. He is almost twice her age. When she was born, he had just gotten his GED.

He cannot in good conscience have sex with a twenty-one year old even if she passes for twenty-nine, so he made his apologies and left. He'd rather not get laid than feel like a creep in the morning and Courtney was cool about it once he pointed out that he could be her father.

Dean heads back to the motel. He hates coming back so soon from a date, so he's very quiet as he unlocks the door and slips inside.

Quiet enough that neither of the two people in the room immediately notice him—Sam and another man whose back is to the door. They're lying on one of the beds, talking quietly. Then the other man leans forward to kiss Sam.

"Son of a-" Dean begins before he can stop himself. His brother? With a guy?

His brother looks up, startled. The other man calmly twists around to see who's there.

Dean has a moment of conflict. It's not his business who Sam hooks up with, but his brother isn't into guys normally, they know there's a siren in town, and so far it's only been taking the form of a male and seducing males. There is no such thing as coincidence.

"Dean." Sam sits up, looking embarrassed. "You're back early."

Dean realizes then that he recognizes the probable siren's face. That's the guy who was behind the counter at the pizza place.

"Who's your friend?" Dean innocently edges over to the duffle bag where the bronze knives are. Without looking he feels around for one.

Sam gets up from the bed as if to defend the siren.

"His name is Will," he informs Dean.

"Hi, Will. Sam, can I talk to you for a second?" Having slipped the knife up his sleeve, Dean pulls his brother into the corner and lowers his voice, keeping an eye on Will. "Mind telling me just how you guys met?"

"He just showed up. He was expecting you, but you were already gone."

"Expecting me?"

"Yeah." Sam looks over his shoulder at the siren, who's sitting up but waiting patiently for the brothers to finish their conversation. He lowers his voice: "Look, you get kinda jealous whenever I meet someone, so could you back off this time?"

"What?"

"Yeah, dude. Like with Becky, at first you were pissed just 'cause she was taking me away from you."

"She roofied you!"

"Yeah, but you didn't know that then. You were just jealous that I loved someone other than you."

This is getting too personal for Dean's taste, so he changes the subject:

"Do you realize that Will is a siren?"

Sam thinks that over for a few seconds.

"...Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. So?"

"So he's the one who's been killing guys."

"He hasn't been killing anyone, Dean, and I wouldn't care if he did."

"How do you know that?"

"It's the baby." Sam has that spark in his eyes of putting pieces of a puzzle together. "He's trying to have a kid, but the other guys haven't been strong enough to carry it to term. They've given birth prematurely and that's what killed them. Not Will."

"Wait, I was right?"

Sam looks uncomfortable, and then a horrific question presents itself to Dean.

"Are you _pregnant_?"

"That's none of your business."

"You'll die!"

"So? I'd die for Will. I'll die for his child if he wants me to."

Dean tried to reason with his brother; no one can say he didn't. But Sam is very much under the siren's spell and possibly infected with a parasite that will kill him in a couple weeks, so talking isn't an option anymore.

He delivers a right hook to knock Sam out.

"Sorry, Sammy." Dean hates to cut his brother open, but he needs the blood and he needs it fast, so he pushes up Sam's sleeve and makes a long cut to coat the knife with his blood.

Will has wisely decided to flee, but not quite soon enough. Dean chases him out the door and across the parking lot, into a tiny copse of trees, before throwing the knife.

He successfully hits his target. Once the siren is definitely dead, he picks up the now hideous body and puts it into the trunk.

Then he returns to the motel room, where Sam is getting up from the floor, looking extremely embarrassed.

"Dean?"

"Hey, you okay?"

"I think so." He glances down at his bleeding arm.

"Sorry about that," Dean offers. He pulls out a clean handkerchief and ties it around the wound.

"No, I'm sorry. I let him in."

"It's not your fault. I just wanna know how the guy who handed me our pizza got to first base with you."

"He worked at the pizza place?"

"Yeah. Can't believe I left a tip." Dean starts packing up their stuff.

"Maybe he was spitting in food to infect people," Sam reasons as he pitches in. "I was already under the spell when he came to the door."

"Gross."

"That would explain why we couldn't find a connection between the other vics."

"Everybody likes pizza," Dean agrees. He clears his throat and very carefully begins, "Uh, Sammy..."

"I'm not pregnant, Dean," Sam informs him flatly.

Dean breathes a sigh of relief.

They throw their stuff in the car just as he sees a cop car approaching, lights flashing. Could be a coincidence, but there's a fair chance somebody saw him stuff a body in the trunk, so they've got to get the hell out of Dodge.

As he takes various backroads and U-turns to reach the nearest highway, Dean is preoccupied by the fact that Sam seems a little more shaken than usual.

"You sure you're okay, Sammy?"

He just scoffs.

"Not really, but if things were any different, I'd probably have a siren growing in me right now."

"Whaddya mean?"

"He showed up not long after you left. In less than two minutes, he had me on my knees, agreeing to have his baby—I think that's how he knocked them up, through oral. When he took it out, I... freaked. All I could think of was Gacy in the fucking clown suit."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Dean glances at his brother, who's leaning against the window, like he's making himself smaller, hiding.

"I talked about it with him," Sam admits. There's a heavy silence before he continues, "It was going away. I'd pushed it down along with everything else and it was just another shitty thing that happened, until... this. It'll go away again."

"Well," Dean says, making an executive decision to lighten the mood, "We learned one thing today."

"...What?"

"Never, ever swallow, Sammy."

For a second, Sam looks pissed, but he eventually cracks a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took so long to update.
> 
> I've come to the realization that this project is both too ambitious and not well thought-out enough. I've written a couple chapters beyond this and I'm realizing that most of this story isn't great and there is one really good chapter coming up and that's the only thing I like about this story. I'm gonna finish of course (still planning to finish before season 15 starts) but I want to apologize for this story just plain not being the quality I expect from myself.


	7. Legacies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam meets the young girl he's been seeing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A two-part "episode."

After about forty-five minutes of frantic driving, Sam remembers abruptly where they have to go next.

"You gotta get on 29 South."

"Why?"

"We're going to Iowa."

"What's in Iowa?"

Sam takes a deep breath. Time to come clean.

"The yellow-eyed demon."

"Azazel? ...Azazel is in Iowa?"

"Yep. Bedford."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's watching a girl who lives there, and I don't know what's preventing him from hurting her but we have to stop him before he finds a way."

Dean looks at him like he's crazy.

"I've been having dreams," Sam explains. "Like, the premonitions I used to get. Ever since the graveyard, I kept seeing a man with yellow eyes watching this girl sleeping, and something isn't letting him do more, but he wants to. He wants to use her or hurt her or maybe feed her his blood, I don't know. I couldn't figure out who she was until now, but tonight I found her."

"Nice of you to let me know you were getting weird dreams again."

"You couldn't have done anything. We already knew he might be back, anyway."

"Is there any other psychic crap I should know about?"

"No."

"Okay, what else do we know?"

"Not much. The girl's name is Emily Roberts." Sam pauses before adding reluctantly, "Her mom is Dr. Cara Roberts."

"Who?"

"The one you thought was a siren, remember?"

"Right." Dean is quiet for a few seconds, then asks, "How old is Emily?"

"Maybe ten, I dunno. Why?"

There's a pensive, guarded expression on Dean's face.

"Look, man, not to freak you out or anything, but..."

"But what?" Sam doesn't understand what his brother is getting at.

"You slept with Cara, right? If she got pregnant, how old would that kid be now?"

As a man who is generally safe on the infrequent occasions he has sex, Sam hasn't had to do a "could I be the father" calculation since before he dated Jess, but he can still do the math almost instantly. He doesn't remember exactly when the siren job was, but it was early 2009. A baby conceived then would be born between October and December of that year, so in July 2019 it would be...

"Nine years old." Finally Sam gathers his brother's point, and promptly dismisses it, scoffing: "She's not mine. She can't be."

"You sure about that?"

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He was twenty-five then, young, rash, feeling invincible from demon blood, and... and how the hell is he supposed to remember if he _might_ have gotten someone pregnant a decade ago?

"Emily isn't mine. It doesn't matter anyway. She and Cara are in danger."

Dean is quiet for a minute. He knows that Sam would have given a reason Emily couldn't be his if he had one, which means he has nothing.

"It does matter, Sam. It would explain why Azazel is watching her. And because it's gonna be a lot harder to walk away afterwards and not look back if you find out she is yours."

"She isn't," he insists. Even as he says it he realizes how out-of-character his attitude is. Technically, sure, it's possible; it's just that the idea of Emily being his won't compute. For some reason it's unacceptable to him, so he must deny it.

Sam turns on the radio to let his brother know that there won't be any more discussion about it.

Two songs play before Dean turns the volume down to almost nothing and asks in a gentle, big-brother voice:

"Can I give you some advice?"

Sam gestures for him to go ahead.

"Maybe the kid's yours, maybe she isn't. Either way, you won't have to ask. Once you meet her, your gut will tell you."

Even if it's unnecessary, it's comforting to receive words of experience and guidance from his brother, and meaningful that they're words so close to a subject they were never supposed to talk about again.

"Thank you."

When Sam looks at his brother again a few seconds later, Dean is smiling to himself, like he's remembering some tiny ray of sunshine in their dark lives.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just-" Dean takes a deep breath and confesses: "Every couple years, I look up Ben, see how he's doing."

"And?"

"He's great. He's got a job, a girl, a high school diploma. Anyway, a few weeks back, I look, and the first thing I see on his Facebook page is him holding a new baby. A boy." His eyes flick over to Sam's. "His."

"No kidding?" Sam blinks. Ben would be twenty now, which is pretty young to be a parent, but Dean is pleased:

"That makes me a _grandpa_ ," he says triumphantly.

Sam had been surprised just to hear Ben's name, but for Dean to speak as if he is factually Ben's father was inconceivable before now.

He'd known, of course. Even if Ben isn't biologically related to them, he was still as much Dean's as Jack was their kid. Blood or not, Dean has a grandson.

Damn, they've gotten old.

"Congratulations," he offers.

His brother has hidden it well for weeks, but Sam can see now how ecstatic Dean is at the thought of being a grandparent. He doesn't even care that he will never meet the baby. It's enough knowing that Ben—as well as Lisa—is out there living a safe, normal life.

That wouldn't be enough for Sam. _If_ Emily were his daughter, he would have to take some responsibility, be there for her. He couldn't ignore his child's existence, no matter how dangerous it was for them.

*

It's weird coming back to a town after ten years. There are buildings like the post office and the town hall that are vaguely familiar, new features like an upgraded Gas'n'Sip, and then structures that feel like they're the wrong color or that Sam could swear were on the opposite side of the street.

It's a Saturday morning when the Winchesters arrive, so they go straight to the address Sam found for Cara Roberts.

It's a relatively small house, but the outside is well-kept. He can already guess which window is Emily's bedroom. There's a car in the driveway, so they must be home.

"How do you wanna do this?" Dean asks as he parks the car a little ways down the street.

"I'm just gonna go in, talk to Cara, maybe try to talk to Emily, find out if they've noticed anything weird."

"Should I go around back?"

"No, just wait here."

Dean gives him a suspicious look.

Sam scoffs.

"Like you've never made me wait in the car while _you_ got laid."

His brother thinks that over, and eventually concedes the point, completely aware that Sam would never do such a thing in the first place.

Sam gets out of the car and crosses the road, then approaches the house. He walks straight up to the front door and presses the doorbell before he loses his nerve.

After about thirty seconds, the door cracks open. There's Cara. The past ten years have treated her well, Sam thinks.

"... Sam Stiles." Understandably, she looks and sounds shocked to see him.

It only hits Sam then how lucky he is that she never tried to look him up afterwards—another tick in the 'not the dad' column—and that he doesn't have to explain his impersonating a federal agent. Yet.

He smiles at her.

"Hi, Cara."

She returns the expression with some bemusement.

"Uh, no offense, but what the hell are you doing at my house?"

The story he concocted is simple and barely a lie:

"There's someone... dangerous out there, someone who has a certain victim profile. You and anyone who lives with you might be in danger."

She looks concerned though unconvinced.

"How much danger?"

"Honestly, I don't know. We're not even sure where this person is or what their plans are. But they're known to mess with their victims first, try to scare them, possibly months ahead of time. Have you noticed anything strange happening at your house lately?"

Cara gestures for him to come inside; he does so. She closes the door and attempts to clarify:

"Strange as in...?"

"Anything. Flickering lights, strange sounds, strange smells. Even changes in behavior from anyone close to you."

Cara is thoughtful, but she shakes her head.

"No, nothing."

"You haven't seen any strangers around? Nobody new in town since, say, April?"

"Not that I've noticed."

"Alright, uh... good." Sam takes out his notebook and writes down his phone number. He's out of business cards with the right name on them. "Please call me if you see or hear anything."

Cara looks between his face and the proffered piece of paper, then asks the question Sam was dreading:

"Do you have a few minutes?"

*

Sam sits at the kitchen island with a cup of coffee, Cara standing on the other side. She's acting a little nervous, tapping her fingers on the countertop.

"Seems like the FBI would have better things to do than go door to door warning people about a serial killer that might not even be in the area," she remarks.

Sam gives a helpless shrug. He could say he wanted to warn her in person, because she's giving off something of a 'single and ready to mingle' vibe alongside her apparent anxiety, but even if he was in the mood right now he's not going to try to sleep with her until Azazel is out of the picture.

"What've you been up to?" Cara asks him.

"That is a long, long story that you don't want to hear." Sam looks around the kitchen and spots a drawing stuck to the fridge. It's a fairly good rendition of a horse. "You have kids?" he asks.

"One. My daughter Emily." Cara looks almost relieved that he brought up the subject.

"So you've settled down," Sam tries, instead of politely asking Emily's age.

"You could call it that. It's just the two of us."

"Is her dad around?" he manages.

"Not at the moment." Cara continues, looking into his eyes like she's searching for something.

He has to ask. Just get it out of the way so he can stop worrying that his brother is somehow right. He's been pissed at Dean for suggesting the idea; now he has to put it to bed.

"How old is she?"

"She'll be ten in December." She maintains eye contact.

It occurs to Sam only then that there was no dad in the photo he found of Emily, winner of a regional spelling bee competing against kids two years older. Only a total deadbeat would fail to show up for something like that, right? Or a man who didn't know he had a daughter.

The truth he's been denying to himself sinks in. He was a dumb twenty-five year old who did what Cara suggested that night, lived life like there was no tomorrow. There was a tomorrow, one that Cara dealt with on her own. He's fathered a child, his own flesh and blood, and been completely absent for her whole life.

That's why he couldn't accept before that Emily might be his. It means he let down yet another person close to him, someone who should have been able to depend on him. It means she's only in danger because she's his. It means he has a second chance not to be a complete failure of a father but he's already 0 for... everything in his daughter's life thus far.

"I'm sorry," he says, exhaling heavily. He could cry purely from his guilt.

"For what? She's the best thing that ever happened to me."

He can hardly believe Cara's smiling, even if he does know where she's coming from.

"For not being here."

"I didn't try to tell you. You were long gone by the time I knew, and there was no way you wanted a kid out of a one night stand in my office, so I decided to raise her on my own. You don't need to apologize, we've been fine."

"Parenting _with_ someone is hard enough," Sam protests. "I can't imagine doing it on my own."

"Do you have kids?" Cara asks, surprised.

"...No," he answers in what he thinks is a normal voice, but apparently the look on his face says how much that question hurts.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." She reaches across the counter, touching his hand.

"Not your fault." He blinks away the threat of tears and tries to focus on the issue at hand. He has a kid right now; he's got to step up for her. He failed Jack before, too concerned about losing Dean and then devastated after Michael killed Maggie and the other hunters. He won't abandon Emily like that, no matter how hard it is.

"We don't have to talk about Emily right now. I wouldn't have dropped that on you if I knew," Cara apologizes again. "It can wait. Hell, forget I said anything."

"No, it can't wait. We should've talked about her ten years ago. If she's mine, I've got to take some responsibility." Sam takes a deep breath. "What do you want from me?"

"Well, _I_ don't need anything. Sure, it's tough being a single mom, but I figured that when I decided to keep her. I've been lucky—friends, family, neighbors, they've been there for us and I've made it work. We only need to talk about what Emily wants."

"Which is?"

"Anything."

Sam furrows his brow, not understanding.

"She's never had a father figure in her life, but she's always wanted one," Cara explains. "She knows she'll probably never have a dad who lives with her, but she wants _something_. She'll be happy with however much time you can spare, but you have to be upfront with her about it. Don't promise you'll be there on her birthday if all you're gonna do is call."

"What if I have to tell her that she might never see or hear from me again?"

"Then say so. She's smart, she'll understand if you can't drop your entire life to spend time with her. I know she'd still love to meet her dad, just once. All you need to do is be honest about whether she'll see you again."

"I can do that." Sam already feels guilty as hell, knowing what it's like to grow up missing a parent, and knowing what it's like to expect something from that parent when they do show up and not receive it. Mom had an excuse; she was dead and came back to find she'd lost her husband and her sons as she knew them. He's been living his life (and, he supposes, saving the world and occasionally being dead) completely oblivious to this child's existence and growth. "When can I meet her?"

Cara looks surprised at his eagerness.

"She's at a friend's house right now, but she'll be back soon."

*

Although Sam and Cara have no trouble filling the silence with conversation, it's stressful to think that any moment, that girl is going to come home and Sam will introduce himself as her father.

"We don't have to do this today," Cara points out when he starts pacing. "This is a lot to take in all at once."

"I can't put this off."

She looks at him for a couple seconds, then gives something between a scoff and a laugh.

"What?" he asks.

"I'm the one who owes you an apology. I thought I was doing you a favor not telling you."

"I don't blame you," Sam reassures her. If his life was different, he might be angry that he's missed so much, but it was probably for the best. He couldn't have handled being a father and fighting an apocalypse at the same time, not back then. The rewards of parenting come with a lot of responsibility and struggle. Very little of it mixes well with the Life.

Then they hear the back door to the house open.

"Wait here." Cara goes around the corner.

"Mom, I'm back," Emily calls out. There's a pause, then she asks, "Are you okay, Mom?"

"Yes. There's someone you should meet."

"Who?"

"He's in the kitchen."

Sam swallows nervously and straightens his shirt. Realistically, a nine year old who's meeting a parent for the first time doesn't care all that much about appearance, but he still wants to make a good impression.

Emily comes into the kitchen a couple seconds later, looking intrigued. Cara follows at a distance.

It's something to see her in person, to meet a human being that allegedly came from him. His family, his blood. At first glance she looks like any other nine year old girl enjoying summer vacation—shorts, t-shirt, bare feet, ponytail with a few strands of hair loose—but there's something more to her, too.

She actually looks like him, Sam realizes. Her hair and eyes are dark like Cara's, but the resemblance to her mother tapers off after that. That's why she was vaguely familiar, because of those hints at the same face he sees in the mirror.

She narrows her eyes slightly as she takes in his appearance, his height, his demeanor—not out of hostility but guarded curiosity. Sam knows because, he realizes, he does the same thing to analyze a strange situation.

"Who are you?" she asks when he doesn't introduce himself.

"I'm-" He can't say it. He's remembering the very first interaction he had with Jack, how the newborn nephilim was standing there looking for his dad, for Cas. ( _"Father?"_ ) Now Sam is in the opposite situation. Dean was right; Sam met her and he knows deep down that she's his. It's terrifying. Clearing his throat, he starts over: "My name's Sam."

She's still looking at him expectantly, but with less suspicion.

"Em," Cara says gently, "Sam... is your father."

Her eyes go round.

"You're my _dad_?!"

"Yes," Sam manages. He gives her a smile, though it's hard. There are a lot of emotions going on and he was only prepared for about half of them.

"You're my dad!" she repeats, ecstatic. She practically bounds across the room, then cranes her neck to look up at him, eyes shining. " _You're my dad._ "

It's a lot easier to smile back when he gets down on one knee and her contagious joy starts to override his insecurities and fears.

She's just staring at his face, and Sam finally knows what he looked like when he was able to really look at his mom for the first time, when he got to touch her and talk to her. He hopes to remember the excitement and thrill in Emily's eyes forever. A person could survive on that alone, believing they've made one other person as happy as this child looks now.

" _You'remydadyou'remydadyou'remydad!_ " she repeats in an excited squeal, practically as one word. Then she throws her arms around him in a fierce embrace, the type of hug only someone who's never met their parent before is capable of giving. She whispers in his ear: "I've wanted to meet you for my whole entire _life_!"

Sam knows the feeling all too well, and hugs back as tightly as he dares. He hears her sniffle then, crying from sheer joy.

A part of him wants to drop everything, forget about hunting, move in and make it work with Cara, raise their daughter, and watch her have a peaceful, normal life. He owes her that, doesn't he? He missed the first nine years of her childhood; he shouldn't miss any more of it.

Emily pulls back just enough to look at his face again.

"Can I call you Dad?" she asks breathlessly. "Please?"

What a question. Sam wonders faintly if he should have asked his mom for permission, if it was uncomfortable having two men physically older than her calling her "Mom." Personally he's in no way ready to hear a child call him that, but he can't deny Emily anything right now.

"Sure."

With a gleeful shriek, Emily flings her arms around him again.

Sam feels an unburdened, unconditional love from her. It's not a deep love, a love that comes from familiarity and an acceptance of flaws, but a light, childish emotion based merely on the fact that he is her father and he exists.

She's so innocent and carefree—she meets him and doesn't demand an explanation for his absence nor distrust him. All she wanted was someone to call Dad, a face to put to the concept.

_("Father?")_

She doesn't know anything about him, has no idea the things he's done, the mistakes he's made, the sins he's committed. It doesn't occur to her to be angry it took nine years for him to show up.

He would be surprised by her purely positive reaction to meeting him, but he remembers being nine and wishing he had a mom, and knowing that if he met her he would run into her arms as unquestioningly as Emily is now.

Regardless, he owes her an apology.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here," Sam whispers to her. "I didn't know, and I'm so sorry."

This time when his daughter pulls away to speak, she seems a little calmer, like she's remembering she has to be realistic about the situation. Although she's still overjoyed just having him before her eyes, being able to touch him, she's collected herself somewhat.

"What about now?"

"We're gonna talk about that later, but I'll spend some time with you today, and tomorrow too if you want," Sam promises.

Emily nods an emphatic yes, as if she has absolutely no doubt that she will love being around him.

"That's gonna be a no from me," Cara says, suddenly wrenching the girl from Sam's grasp.

"Mom?" The girl struggles, protesting. "Mom, you're hurting me!"

Sam is shocked until he sees Cara's eyes, then pure dread sets in.

"Emily, that's not your mom."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest assured no one is more disappointed in/angry at me for writing _another_ fic where Sam has a kid than I am.
> 
> Also disclaimer because I feel so strongly about it: I don't think Ben is canonically biologically Dean's.


	8. Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam can only try to salvage what's left of Emily's life.

The yellow-eyed demon in Cara's body smiles pleasantly at Sam as it grips Emily's arm.

"Let her go," Sam demands.

"Can't do that."

"What do you want with her?"

"Well, I _wanted_ to find you and your brother, but you're so well warded, all I could find was your spawn."

"...It is you, isn't it? Azazel."

"You learned my name, how touching."

"Well, you found me. Why can't you let her go?"

"Because I didn't want to just find you, Sam. I wanted to hurt you. You not only derailed my Father's plans but killed him and my siblings, and you're going to pay for that. Dean, too."

Emily is looking up at Sam, confused and scared.

"We could make a deal," Sam tries. "Let Cara and Emily go. I'll- I'll give you whatever you want."

"All I want is to watch the helpless look on your face as the life leaves your daughter's eyes." Azazel starts to squeeze Emily's throat, completely unaffected by her struggles.

"No!"

The demon just gives an evil chuckle.

Sam lunges for him, but Azazel holds up a hand:

"That will only kill her faster, Sam."

" _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii..._ " The exorcism doesn't help, which is little surprise to Sam, but means he's almost out of options. "Cara? Cara, you have to fight-"

"She can't hear you."

Emily is fading out of consciousness, and Sam can only think of one other thing that might save her.

He reaches out with both his hand and his mind.

Azazel laughs.

"I _made_ you, Sam. You can't kill me."

"Maybe not, but I didn't need you to kill Alastair or Lilith, and you're still a demon." Sam closes his eyes and starts to hurt Azazel.

With a cry of pain, the demon drops its hostage.

Sam's head feels like it's on fire and the pain is spreading throughout his body like the blood dripping from his nose down to his chin. He's not sure what's going to happen; he might not be strong enough to defeat a Prince of Hell. Ruby said he didn't need the feather to fly, implying that he didn't really need demon blood. It could be true, seeing as he almost exorcised a weaker demon on his own even before she poisoned him. But Azazel is the very demon his powers come from; he can't hope to succeed.

Emily is trying to crawl away, probably dizzy from lack of air, but Sam's protective instinct can't wait for that. While Azazel is still disoriented, he scoops up Emily and runs.

He's almost to the front door when the room goes up in flames, leaving them no escape.

Azazel has followed them, and he's laughing because Cara's body is on fire as well.

Without even thinking, Sam lashes out with his powers. He strikes Azazel with invisible force, and while it doesn't do much more than a punch in the nose might, it gives Sam time to look around for a way to get Emily out of the house.

There isn't one, he realizes. Fire blocks every visible exit from the room.

Dean is out there waiting, but is he close enough to hear a cry for help from inside?

"DEAN!" he shouts. He doesn't know if his brother heard, and he doesn't know if it will help.

Again, he sees no choice other than to use the powers he once hated and feared. He avoided them for so long, knowing they came from pure evil, but that doesn't matter now. He doesn't have to worry about becoming evil because he already is.

In a situation where he as a human can do nothing, where things are outside his control and people are getting hurt simply because they're his blood, he can, he _must_ give in to the lure of power, the sense of control that demon blood once gave him. He allows himself to remember how good it felt.

He closes his eyes and reaches for Azazel. He can control demons; Azazel is a demon. Though he can't possibly kill a Prince of Hell like this, certainly not the one who gave him this power in the first place, he is not helpless. He can still pull the demon from Cara's body.

"How-" Azazel begins incredulously, but is cut off when Sam starts to make some progress.

He's never tried to exorcise such a powerful being, and he's much weaker than he's ever been when going against one—in fact he's pretty sure this will kill him. He accepts that; he has to do whatever it takes to protect Emily. It's too late for Cara, but he can go down trying to keep her daughter safe. Their daughter.

He makes one last psychic tug at the demon. It's like trying to pull a never-ending series of scarves from a sleeve except the scarves weigh about a ton each.

Everything is fading. Sam's senses are failing, either from breathing too much smoke or exerting too much psychic effort or both, but he can tell when the demon is out. He did it. Cara's body, still aflame, falls to the floor.

Sam has just enough semblance of thought left to send Azazel back to Hell, a much easier task than the one he just completed, but he collapses when he does.

He's senseless as Emily struggles out of his arms. He tries to tell her to run, find a way out, but he can't make his lips move.

She's tugging at his sleeve, urging him to get up. He can't; he simply wasn't strong enough to exorcise a Prince of Hell and make an escape.

He hears a window shatter nearby, and his brother's voice—"Sam!"—but he's too weak and fades out of consciousness.

*

Sam wakes up in a hospital room. He's surprised to see Emily standing by the bed.

"Dad?" She looks hopeful, almost excited to see him awake.

"Emily." He hopes he successfully hid his moment of confusion, a split second in which he had no idea why this child called him dad. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I guess so... Dean saved us. Me, you, and Mom."

Sam sits up carefully. How long has he been out? They've got him on an IV and oxygen tubes. It hurts to breathe; he probably inhaled a lot of smoke.

"Your mom?"

"She's alive," Emily nods. "But they moved her to a burn unit. She can't even talk."

Sam is relieved that Cara is alive, but after seeing her body burning, he wonders what kind of life she'll have once she heals—if she heals.

"I'm glad you're okay," the girl says. She touches his hand.

"I'm glad _you're_ okay," he replies, though he notices then that what he thought were shadows on her throat are bruises from Azazel choking her. It makes him sick to his stomach. Emily is an innocent child, and she's already gotten hurt because she had a connection to him. She's lost pretty much everything; her life has been uprooted. "Do you know where my brother is now?"

"He's here, he just went to get coffee. ...He's really worried about you. I heard him praying."

Who the hell would Dean be praying to, Sam wonders.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"You've been in a coma," Emily corrects him, "for almost two days."

"Where have you been staying?"

"My best friend's mom and dad are letting me stay until my grandparents come. ...I have to go live with them."

"'Til your mom heals up, yeah."

Emily shakes her head sadly.

"I told the police and the doctors what happened, but none of them believe me. They think she did it. They think she went crazy and tried to kill me and you."

This is even worse than Sam thought. If Cara recovers, she'll suffer legal consequences from being Azazel's meatsuit. She'll lose custody of her beloved daughter; she might even go to a mental hospital or prison for attempted murder.

"I'm so sorry," he tells her. "None of this would've happened if I didn't come back here."

Emily looks troubled that he might be to blame for the tragedy.

"Dean said you came here to protect me and my mom from the demon."

"...What?"

"Dean's the only one that believes me. After I told him what happened, he told me about demons and ghosts and monsters."

Sighing, Sam despairs that his child has been dragged into the world he's known for over twenty-five years. He didn't want this for her. He's known since he was eighteen that he didn't want any kids he might have to grow up knowing the truth about what's out there.

"Sammy." Dean is standing in the doorway.

"Dean." Sam feels better just seeing his brother.

"How you feeling?"

"I'm alive." He gives Dean a _we need to talk_ look.

"Hey, Emily, why don't you go buy yourself a candy bar?" Dean offers her a five dollar bill. "There's a vending machine down the hall."

"Okay." Emily, easily distracted by the promise of candy, leaves the room.

"You told her?" Sam demands as soon as she's far enough away.

"Your whole schtick with Dad was him not telling us stuff. I thought you'd want her to know."

Dad. Now Sam is 'Dad.' And now... now Cara can't take care of Emily, which means it's on him. He is the parent. Maybe not her legal guardian, but still her parent, with duties and responsibilities.

"...You're right. I don't want to lie to her." Sam picks at the blanket. He's lost. He wishes either his mom or dad was here to give him some advice. He knows already what his brother is going to say, that he should walk away. Sam won't do that. Even though... "You were right about everything, Dean. Cara told me Emily was mine. The second I saw her with my own eyes, I knew she was mine. Everything that's happened is _because_ she's mine. Cara almost died. Emily got hurt. So say it. You told me so."

Dean doesn't gloat. He just continues calmly:

"Where's Azazel now, d'you think?"

"Hell. I just don't know how long he'll be trapped there."

"You exorcised a Prince of Hell? How?"

"The only way I could. The same way I threw those zombies."

A dark, worried expression falls over Dean's face. It's not the disgust or derision that used to be there when Sam admitted to using his powers, just concern.

"You almost died."

Something clicks in Sam's head, a memory. His brother, young, desperate, having just made a deal to die in a year because he couldn't live with Sam dead, trying to hide it.

"Dean, what did you do?"

"What?"

"Did you do something? Did you make a deal?"

"No."

"Emily said she heard you praying."

Dean is embarrassed but he doesn't deny it.

"I didn't know what else to do. But nobody answered, nothing happened."

"Who were you praying to?"

"...Chuck. I told Him I'd play His game if He gave you an ending you deserved. Y'know, peaceful."

Sam's eyes fill with tears. Dean still doesn't know and can never know what's going to happen when they die. He can't lose a second of time with him.

"We're not making any deals that involve splitting us up," he says. "Nothing is more important than us sticking together until the end."

Before Dean can respond, Emily returns.

It hurts to look at her, this beautiful innocent child that Cara nurtured and cared for, knowing her life has been destroyed. He never should have come here.

*

Once Sam is out of the hospital the next day, he's faced with something totally new and alien: the closest thing he will ever have to a mother-in-law.

He meets her on the playground outside the local elementary school. School is long out for summer, but there are a handful of children and parents present.

Emily is waiting with her grandmother, but she leaves the woman behind to greet Sam.

"Dad." She's smiling as she looks up at him.

"Hey, Emily." It stings to see how attached she's grown to him in such a short time. With Cara absent, she's chosen to cling to the idea of her dad.

He shouldn't have let that happen. He should have been cooler, detached, standoffish.

Emily's grandmother approaches then, having maintained a decorous pace. She holds out her hand to introduce herself:

"Cerise Snow."

"Sam Winchester."

Sam shakes her hand. He feels like he's on a serious job interview—not that he's been on one in over fifteen years. The woman is analyzing him, judging him.

As well she should. Although Cerise might not be thinking that far ahead, she'll determine whether Sam is in his daughter's life after today.

"Emily, could you give us a few minutes to talk?" Cerise asks the girl.

"...Okay." Emily is fully aware that they will be discussing her future and she obviously wishes to be a part of it, but she begrudgingly goes over to the swingset.

Cerise and Sam sit on a bench to speak in low voices.

"I'm grateful neither of you were seriously hurt," the woman remarks. "I still don't understand how Cara could have done it. We didn't always see eye to eye on things, but I never imagined she would do something like this. And Emily... she's in complete denial. She won't even acknowledge it was Cara."

"She told you it was a demon, right?" Sam is treading carefully—he'll sound insane if he corroborates Emily's story, but he refuses to throw Cara under the bus just to save face.

"Yes. I don't know how she got that idea in her head. Cara wasn't religious at all." There's a tone of mild disapproval which is exactly what Sam was looking for.

"Are you?"

"Well, yes. My husband and I go to church every Sunday."

"If you believe in God, you believe angels and demons exist, then, don't you?"

"Well... yes, but demons don't just come crawling out of Hell and come to a small town like Bedford." Cerise looks uncomfortable, like she's wondering if Sam is some religious nut.

Sam looks her in the eye and lies:

"I don't know exactly what I saw that day." He continues, carefully, "There _are_ insane, evil people out there who would hurt their own children, but I don't think Cara is one of them."

Cerise actually smiles a little bit, a sad smile.

"It's easier for Emily and for you to believe that it was something else. I can't, because that would mean my daughter is suffering now for no reason. God wouldn't let something like that happen to an innocent person, would he?"

So, she's _that_ kind of religious, Sam thinks.

"I don't know," he lies again.

"Cara and me, we haven't had the best relationship since she had Emily," Cerise explains. "Cara insisted that she didn't want to put that responsibility on you, all the while saying Emily is the best part of her life. After I told her she was being a hypocrite keeping a father from his child, well, we haven't spoken much outside the holidays."

"It hurts that I missed so much," Sam agrees. "But she had no way of knowing whether I'd be some revolving-door dad and break Emily's heart every other birthday. I can't blame her for trying to protect a child from that."

Cerise seems almost impressed that he's more forgiving of her daughter than she is. Then she asks what should be the million dollar question:

"Will you be seeking custody?"

The thought had crossed his mind as soon as he learned how serious Cara's injuries were—third and even fourth degree burns—but he knew the answer in the same moment.

"I can't provide a stable home for her," Sam admits. "If I thought I could give Emily the childhood she deserves, I'd fight to have her with me, but I can't. The work I do... there's a lot of traveling involved, and even when there isn't, the work follows you home. I know what it's like, my dad did the same thing. I won't do that to Emily."

Unless, Sam thinks as he watches Emily talking with a couple of children around her age, he gets out. Now that he knows Chuck was pulling the strings, that there _was_ a higher power that kept pulling him and Dean back into the Life, and that supposedly said higher power is going to end their story...

What if Chuck is offering them a happy ending? What if Dean's prayers _were_ answered, and all Sam and Dean have to do is find steady jobs and an apartment?

The other children are asking Emily questions and she is answering. She and the child whose face he can see have very serious, almost sad looks on their faces. She's probably telling them about her mom.

Then she points at Sam and the other two look at him, fascinated. They turn back to Emily and start pestering her with more questions. She answers them looking almost proud.

That was probably the first time in her life she's ever gotten to point at someone and tell other people, _"That's my dad."_

Having him here... it must mean almost as much to her as having Mom back did to him. She must have a huge blank in her life where she knows her dad is supposed to be and he's, what, going to walk away?

"I see," the woman next to him says after a moment. "I'll give you my address and phone number so you can let me know when you want to visit. I'll take Emily back with me to Des Moines tonight."

He should be relieved that Cerise is taking it for granted that he'll visit, but Sam is numb as they exchange contact details. He's saying goodbye to Emily today.

*

Emily is given some time to talk and play with her friends, then Sam and Cerise take her out to lunch. She chatters on and on with Sam, though he can see she's worried. She's worried about her mom, she's worried about leaving the only home she's known, she's worried about Sam going away even though they didn't tell her yet.

When Cerise steps away from the table for a few moments, Emily brings it up:

"So am I going to live with you sometimes?"

He's not sure how to answer, but she presses:

"There's a boy in my class who lives with his mom on the weekends and in the summer but lives with his dad the rest of the time."

"That's not gonna work for us."

Emily stares at the empty dessert plate in front of her. Most of the optimism is gone when she replies.

"When you were in the hospital, I asked Dean if he thought I would live with you when you were better. He said you're like Superman, that you can't be close to too many people because bad things like demons will hurt them."

It's nice of Dean to paint Sam that way, as a superhero with a secret identity rather than a magnet for misfortune.

"He's right that you won't be safe with us," Sam says. "I know it's not what you want to hear, but I can't bring you into that world. I care about you and I don't want you to get hurt. Sooner or later, you will get hurt."

"It's okay," she says non-committally. "Could I come visit sometimes? Like at Christmas?"

"No, even that might be too dangerous. I'll visit you."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Sam nods and smiles, though he has a horrible certainty that his word now is the first seal to a terrifying, bloody fate for her.

*

Sam returns to the motel room a few hours later. 

It's over. They hugged each other tightly and said their goodbyes.

Dean can see how bad it is as Sam sits on the side of his bed and rubs his hands over his face.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asks, offering a glass of whiskey.

Sam accepts the drink but only stares at it for long seconds.

"I never honestly thought I'd have kids," he admits, "but I was so sure that if I did, I could at least do a better job than Dad did." After another moment, he forces out the hard truth: "I had- _we_ had a son, and he's dead. I have a daughter, and in about three days I ruined her entire life, almost got her mom killed, and sent her away to live with her grandparents."

"What happened to Jack wasn't your fault. What just happened to Emily wasn't your fault either. You still got time to make the right choice."

Sam looks at his brother sharply.

"I'm not walking out on her. I promised I'd see her again!"

"You can't, Sam. What's the one thing we've learned over the past fifteen years?" When Sam doesn't respond, Dean continues: "You know what happened to Adam and his mom. You know what almost happened to Lisa and Ben. You know what happens to everyone we get close to. It sucks, but being an absent father is the best thing you can do for her. You wanna take some responsibility for your kid? Responsibility, for us, is staying away and not bringing our shit to their front door."

"You're telling me to break a promise and abandon my kid when she just lost _everything_."

"She's still got a shot at a normal life. You want her to lose that, too?"

The words burn like fire, and there's nothing Sam can do about it. He can't tell Dean that he gave Emily a hex bag to hide her from demons, and that he told her how to use salt, iron, and silver. She knows that monsters exist, so she might as well know how to defend herself. He impressed upon her that most people never see a real monster or ghost, and that she is safe with her grandparents, but after what she saw, she can't have a normal life. She knows what's out there.

Sam could try to quit hunting, but there are still hundreds, maybe thousands of ghosts roaming around, killing innocent people because of what he did to Chuck. He and Dean need to do something about the ghosts, then maybe, maybe he won't have to make a choice. Maybe after that he can be some kind of a father, something close to what Emily deserves.

Until then, he's going to have to be careful, but he _will_ be in her life. He'll visit her maybe once a month, any time he can get a day and a half away from the Life and be sure he isn't followed. He'll show up on Father's Day if he lives that long, not because he expects to be celebrated but because he knows how much it will mean to Emily to have a father on that one day of the year. He'll be there on her birthday even if it means leaving Dean to work a case alone. Cara said Emily would take anything, so he will offer something, however paltry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEASON FIFTEEN IS IN LESS THAN 5 HOURS WOO!!!
> 
> Hey so I went to my first con and met Jared Padalecki and I asked for a photo with Sam and he did this protective pose and I have to brag about it to everyone who'll listen.
> 
> Edit: Of course SPN provides a size reference for Sam picking up/interacting with a small girl literally five hours after I posted this.


	9. Dean (Looks Like A Lady)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean says the wrong thing in front of the wrong person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only chapter I'm proud of. This is the only chapter title I feel remotely clever about. This is the only chapter I've genuinely enjoyed crafting.
> 
> Content warning for [mild] transphobia and some suggestions of slash pairings, but within canonical characterization.

Going back to the bunker feels so trite and pointless to Sam.

He and Dean take a night off soon after they return. God knows they need it after everything that's happened. Sam is under way too much stress, half of it being guilt at handing a tearful Emily off to her grandparents and half of it the murderous secret he's been keeping from Dean, all of it doubly hard to deal with since his demonic premonitions have been replaced with nightmares of a ghostly clown chaining him to a wall and when he wakes up in the morning, still tired, he remembers that he has no hope of sharing an afterlife with his brother.

He hopes, as they head to a dive bar about twenty miles from Lebanon, that he can forget all of it for a couple hours.

They arrive early in the evening, order some beers, and play pool. No good marks around so they sharpen their skills while they wait either for someone to hustle or women to flirt with. Sam wouldn't describe himself as horny so much as he's aware that he needs _something_ right now, so he's making an effort to have a kind of soulless attitude—thinking only of how physically good it will feel to get laid.

They retreat back to the bar when their beers are empty.

There's a different bartender than the one that served them earlier, a blonde who's probably going to elicit a bad pickup line from Dean. Sam almost walks away just so he doesn't have to hear it when she comes back with their beers.

As they wait for their drinks, Dean narrows his eyes at another corner of the establishment.

"Did that guy just walk out of the women's room?"

Sam looks. He can't immediately say whether the individual is male or female, but that's not especially relevant.

"They could be transgender. What's it to you?"

"If somebody does all the hormone and surgery stuff, whatever, but if you still _look_ like a guy..." Dean shrugs.

"Dean-" Sam debates getting on the soapbox, and decides his brother is going to tune out anything he says about letting transgender people pee in whatever room they're comfortable in. He sighs. "Never mind."

He turns to see the hot bartender scowling at Dean, but she drops the sour expression when Dean looks her way again. In fact, she smiles at him as she sets his beer down.

"What's your name?" she asks him.

"Call me Dean. What's yours?"

"Siobhan."

Sam heads for the pool table before he has to watch Dean successfully pick up an attractive bartender even after offending her.

§§§

Dean always feels especially good about picking up the woman who's undoubtedly been getting hit on all night, and it's a point of pride when it's she who whispers that her shift's about to end, and her apartment is across the road, so how about it?

He tosses Sam the car keys with a nod and a smile as he and Siobhan head out the door.

Inside her apartment, they waste no time in stripping. Dean is lying on his back in the middle of her giant bed, naked, and she's grinding against him so good...

" _Somnia,_ " she whispers, and Dean is out cold.

*

Dean wakes up alone in Siobhan's bed.

He sits up and immediately notices something off about his body. It's... unbalanced.

Please, please, please do not be in Sam's body again, he thinks.

He looks down and is both pleased and alarmed to see a woman's body. Those are some nice tits and long legs, but... shouldn't he be seeing himself?

Something's tickling his shoulders and he tries to brush it off only to realize it's hair and it's attached to his head.

There's a full-length mirror in the corner, angled away from the bed. Dean gulps and gets to his feet, closing his eyes as he approaches the mirror.

He has to look, so he forces his eyes open.

"Son of a bitch," he swears, and he touches his throat in horror because that's not his voice.

He's a woman.

Well he's still a man, he thinks, he's just a man whose body has been changed into what he thinks of as a woman's body. Funny, Sam was just talking about transgender people earlier...

At least he's a good-looking woman, especially for forty, he thinks, but it is absolutely not okay that his dick is gone. He could handle having boobs, he could even deal with the hair, but losing the twig and berries? Unac-fucking-ceptable. Dean Winchester is not Dean Winchester without "little Dean."

"Siobhan?" he calls out. Did she do this? Did she swap bodies with him? No, she didn't have tits like these. He's just a woman version of himself. His face is mostly the same, just some features a little softer, some proportions changed.

She said something that sounded like a magic spell, so maybe she's a witch? Fucking witches. It's always him, Dean grumbles in his head. He's always the one who gets stuck with the weird curse or spell that would be kinda hilarious if it happened to Sam, but it is not cool _at all_ when it happens to him.

He leaves the bedroom shivering, uncomfortable walking around naked in a strange body in a strange apartment, and peeks out the window. His car is still parked outside the bar, so Sam's still there.

Okay, how does he do this? He has to put on some clothes and let Sam know what happened, and- Jesus fucking Christ, this is insane. Of all the stupid shit that's happened to him—getting aged, getting de-aged, being abducted by fairies, losing his memories, sort of becoming a dog, swapping bodies with Sam—this is the worst.

His own clothes are nowhere to be found, so he raids Siobhan's closet and dresser. Satin panties because there's no way he's giving up a chance to put those on again, skipping a bra because he has no experience putting one on, the first tank top he sees, something he identifies as a wrap skirt because he's not gonna try on pairs of pants until he finds something that fits, and a denim jacket because it looks like one he used to own, which makes him feel better.

Shoes. Fuck, what if all Siobhan owns are heels? He doesn't know how to walk in those. He's relieved to find a pair of flats, even if they do pinch his feet because Siobhan is smaller than him.

Dean glances in the mirror before leaving. He won't turn any heads one way or the other, but that's a good thing. He just needs to get in, get Sam's attention, and get out.

*

Dean dashes across the street and into the bar, ignoring the catcall from a biker dude outside. Things seem a little taller and he realizes that he's several inches shorter, which Sam is going to love.

Siobhan isn't there, which is no surprise, but he spots Sam at the pool table. There's money down; he's hustling a guy.

Dean approaches them. Sam's pretending to be drunk, as usual, but he notices the new audience. His eyes travel down and then up Dean's body.

Oh god, he's checking Dean out. He doesn't realize it's his brother. He's smiling at Dean, a genuine, confident smile Dean's never seen before because he's never watched his brother meet a woman and instantly decide to try to get to know her better except when he was soulless, and that was different. This is _weird_.

"Hey, lady," the mark greets. "You play?"

Dean gives a casual shrug because hates his new voice so much.

"Well, we just finished here, so why don't you let me buy you a drink?"

"Hey, hey, one more game!" Sam says, still pretending to be drunk but not feigning his distress at the hustle ending prematurely. "Double." He fumbles for his wallet and takes out another handful of twenties. "Play you for double."

The man shakes his head. He's up a couple hundred, looks like, and wants Dean's attention.

Dean's predicament might be urgent, but it can wait for Sam to finish this, especially considering the leverage it will give him the next time he needs a favor from his brother. Being in the wrong body for an extra five minutes is worth four hundred bucks.

"Seems like he wants to play another game," he says, jerking his head at Sam. "I'll wait." He keeps his eyes on the other guy. He knows exactly what kind of disarming smile from a woman would get him to ignore how suspicious this looks and attempts to replicate it.

The opponent, completely oblivious to what's about to happen to him, shrugs and gives Sam a nod.

As he racks the balls, Sam flashes a grin at Dean, one that says, _"Watch this."_

As creepy as it is to think Sam wants to pick him up, it's weirdly refreshing to watch him acting like he knows he's the most capable person in the room. Dean's seen it from a distance—Sam became a leader to those other hunters last year, but after Dean's return, any time he walked into the room, his little brother would lose some of his well-earned bravado. He's never had a problem with Sam's deference, but man, confidence looks good on the kid.

On the other hand, Dean can't wait to see the look on his brother's face when he figures it out.

§§§

As Sam tucks the huge wad of bills into his wallet a few minutes later, he makes eye contact with the female observer. He and the now irate and broke bar patron were playing for more than cash, weren't they? Dean's scored based on his hustling skills more than once; maybe it's finally Sam's turn.

Something's off, though—Sam has won the woman's attention and she is clearly drawn to him, but she's not giving off any flirtatious vibes like she was with the other guy. He might be misreading the situation, but there's something magnetizing about her face.

As soon as the victim of the hustle storms off, Sam approaches the woman.

"Nice job, Sam," she greets.

He tenses. How does she know his name?

"Have we met?"

"Yeah, in _Poughkeepsie_ ," she answers with a meaningful look.

That's a code word, but on the other hand he has actually been to Poughkeepsie a couple times and her face seems familiar now that he's really looking at it, and if this was as urgent as "Poughkeepsie" usually entails, would she have let him finish hustling that guy? Maybe they really did meet in Poughkeepsie.

She nods her head at the door.

"Pay the tab and meet me at the car."

She walks out, so Sam throws a twenty at the bartender and follows. Dean will kill him if he lets a stranger near the Impala unsupervised, even if she does know one of their code words.

As suspicious as he is, he can't help but check out her ass as he catches up with her. Yup, that's a selling point for him, assuming she's not possessed or a monster. He's not giving up on getting laid just yet.

"Who the hell are you?" he demands.

"Don't freak out, okay?"

"What? Why would I freak out?"

"... It's me, Sam. ...Dean."

It doesn't compute.

"...Dean, my _brother_ Dean??" Sam verifies.

"Who the _fuck_ else would this happen to?!" The woman gestures to her body.

Sam takes a moment to contemplate what this person is telling him. His brother walked out of that bar less than an hour ago, and now this woman says she's Dean, in a body that isn't Dean's.

After over two decades of this shit, Sam has seen and experienced a lot of things that seemed too fucking insane to be real, but they were. This would be near the top of the list, one or two spaces under being turned into a cartoon.

"...Dean," he repeats, trying to process it. There's no way some shifter or demon would try to trick Sam with something so ridiculous, but it's just so bizarre.

"Want me to prove it? Ask me something only I would know."

"No, I believe you. I just need a second to, y'know... adjust." By adjust, Sam's heart seems to think he meant freak out because this means Dean as he knows him is gone right now and he really can't cope with that. And holy shit, he was checking out his brother and smiling at him and trying to impress him because he thought his brother was hot. A minute ago he was half-hoping to have sex with this person.

Dean waits a couple seconds before prodding impatiently:

"You good?"

"No, I'm not! You've been _changed_!" They have to fix this immediately, Sam thinks, because this, on top of everything else? This is more than he can handle. "What the fuck happened?"

"You think I know? I'm with Siobhan at her place,"—Dean gestures to the small building—"she's grinding on me like a fucking pro-"

"TMI, Dean."

"-then she says something that sounded like 'insomnia' and I woke up like this! I don't know where she went, what she did with my clothes, or why the hell anyone would wanna turn me into a girl, but I'm gonna fucking kill her if she doesn't change me back!"

From where Sam is standing, he can personally understand why someone would want Dean as a woman, but he pushes that thought away and instead busies himself with unlocking the trunk and loading his gun with witch-killing bullets.

"We'll search her house for clues," he says, mostly to calm himself down with plans, strategy, "and if nothing turns up then- I don't know."

He really, really doesn't know.

*

Three hours later, they've found nothing helpful in Siobhan's apartment aside from Dean's clothes.

"Let's go home and see what the Men of Letters have on this," Sam says.

"After I put my clothes back on," Dean says. He retreats to the bathroom with his clothes and slams the door. 

This is gonna be a weird few days, Sam thinks.

*

In the bunker library, there's a number of magical spells and rituals relating to transfiguration of the human body. Sam makes a list of the spells Siobhan might have used on his brother and ways to reverse them.

Then Dean throws a case file down in front of Sam.

"Found her."

"What?"

Dean crosses his arms and nods at the file. Sam opens it and reads it, raising his eyebrows.

Siobhan Tilley is a centuries-old witch known to the Men of Letters as an uncatchable nuisance, not a murderer but an expert in illusion, physical transformation, and eluding apprehension.

As of when the report was written in 1945, she had been documented temporarily changing seven different men after they had expressed sexist attitudes or disparaged homosexuality. Although the curse is nigh-unbreakable, all of the men returned to their original form after six months, except for one who was informed by Siobhan that he could change back earlier by having sex with another man. He went through with it and changed back immediately.

"What the fuck?" Sam asks.

"Exactly, what the fuck? We didn't talk about gay people or feminism or anything!"

"She did hear you say something kinda transphobic," Sam points out.

"So this is my fault?"

Exhaling sharply, Sam looks for the right words.

"Look, Dean, _I_ know you'd never hurt someone for using the wrong bathroom, but you still said what you said. In a day and age where murderers can literally walk free because their victim was transgender, that makes you part of the problem."

"So you're saying I deserved to be violated."

"You didn't deserve _this_ , but... what she's doing is the wrong thing for the right reason. We can't kill her over this."

"You wanna let her walk? I'm stuck this way for six months!"

"If we can find her, you can apologize, explain that you understand now why that wasn't okay, and ask her to change you back, but it says right here there's another way."

"Oh, yeah, I'll just lose my virginity with some random guy and freak him the hell out when I suddenly grow a dick," Dean says sarcastically.

Sam is uncomfortable thinking about it but he's sure Dean would feel even worse trying to bring up the option, so he decides to get it out in the open:

"I'll ask Cass for you."

" _Cass?!_ "

"He's the most logical choice, right? You can trust him, and he won't be weird about it later. We can explain the situation and-"

"We're not asking Cass to _fuck_ me!"

"Okay, never mind!" Sam is getting almost as upset as Dean is. He doesn't want his brother to be different for six months any more than Dean wants to be stuck in the wrong body for six months, but finding the witch who did it isn't going to fix it. She hasn't done anything he's willing to physically hurt her over, so threatening her to make her change Dean back isn't really an option. "We should still call him, maybe he can help us remove it another way."

"I don't want _anyone_ knowing about this, Sam. Even Cass."

Sam takes a deep breath and decides to get the last option out of the way, staring at the table intently:

"I could- We- ...You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, right?"

"What?"

The younger man can feel his face turning red as he fiddles with the pen in his hands.

"If you want to get changed back, right now, without anyone else finding out... there's- I mean, technically speaking, I c-" He's losing his nerve, but Dean gestures for him to keep going, so he ends weakly, "...There's me."

It's so very quiet in the library as Sam waits for his brother to respond.

"...You'd do that?"

"Not sober, but... yeah, if you want your body back that much."

"Yeah, we'd get drunk first," Dean scoffs. "Thanks, but no thanks. Having tits isn't _that_ bad. Plan A is find Siobhan and make her fix it. That doesn't work, we'll look for another way to break the curse. Plan C is when we break out the whiskey."

As Dean walks away, Sam hopes that his brother will change his mind and ask Cas if they don't find another way, because as much as he doesn't want to wait six months to see his brother again, having sex with Dean would be supremely embarrassing. Dean's in a different body, so it wouldn't change what Sam already has seen and heard, but Sam would be exposing himself in ways he never wanted his older brother to see. Yeah, he wouldn't put it past his brother to have jerked off at some point that time they swapped bodies, but actual sex...

It's okay, Sam tells himself. That's their last resort, so it's unlikely to happen, but even if he does have to, he'll put on a poker face and do it. It's Dean; there's nothing he won't do to get his brother back as he knew him.

*

A few hours later, Sam calls Cas. It's been a while since they talked. The angel usually checks in with Dean once a week so they know he hasn't disappeared completely, and that's about it. Jack's death created a rift that none of them know how to close.

_"Hello, Sam."_

"Hey, Cass, good to hear your voice."

_"How are you?"_

"Fine. Uh... could you do me a huge favor and come to the bunker?"

_"Why, what's wrong?"_

"I'll explain when you get here. But here's the thing: Dean can't know I called. Make up an excuse, whatever. Just show up."

_"Understood."_

*

**Three Weeks Later**

"I'm done, Sam," Dean says.

Confused, Sam looks at his brother, who still looks like his sister.

"With what?"

"This." Dean grabs his breasts. "All of this. I can't take it anymore. We're going nuclear."

"...What?"

"Plan D. For _dick_."

"...Oh."

"Where's Cass?"

"Library." Relieved that he's been excused from sexual duties, Sam turns to walk away but Dean stops him.

"I need you, too."

*

Dean is standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

"Look, we couldn't get Siobhan to reverse it and we aren't finding anything ourselves. So I'm gonna drink this," he tells Sam and Castiel, holding up a half-empty fifth of whiskey, "and once I'm too drunk to tell you apart in the dark, one of you is gonna come in, fuck me, and leave. Once I'm me again, we're never gonna tell another soul, living or dead, about any of this, and you are never, ever gonna tell me which one of you did it."

Dean closes the door to his room.

Sam and Cas put some distance between themselves and the door.

"So, uh..." Sam has no words for this bizarre situation. He is already praying for there to be a day when he completely forgets everything about the entire incident, except perhaps that he should call his brother out the next time Dean says something ignorant or insensitive in public. This whole thing could have been avoided if he'd said something.

"How would you and Dean decide this?" Castiel asks. He looks as uncomfortable as Sam feels.

Sam slowly puts his hands into the familiar position. The angel looks at him quizzically.

"Rock-paper-scissors?" Sam tries.

"Yes, of course." Cas has apparently picked it up at some point, as he immediately puts his fist over his open hand.

They're really doing this.

The angel chants as solemnly as he would deliver an Enochian spell:

"Rock... paper... scissors... shoot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMO this would make an excellent and realistic slash fic for either pairing.
> 
> On a more serious note, if you don't know what Sam was referencing and aren't disgusted enough by society already, you can google the trans panic defense.


	10. D'yer Mak'r

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a surprise return, Sam and Dean go on vacation and for once actually have nice things happen to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the concept of this chapter but also hate this chapter so much I couldn't post it by itself.
> 
> Jack's return should be the only non-coincidental plot point in common with season 15.

The most surprising thing about Jack's return isn't how—something involving Kelly Kline's soul, which she willingly gave—or when—it took three months for Death to rebuild Jack's soul—or where—one morning, Sam walked into the kitchen and Jack was just sitting there. It's that after Sam recovered from his shock and released the nephilim from his tight hug, the first thing Jack said was a bizarre request:

"Don't tell Castiel."

"What?" Sam is confused. "But he'll be so happy to see you. He-"

"I know. And I know that I can't ask anything from you and Dean after what I did, but this is for Castiel. He can't know I'm alive." Jack is so earnest and pleading, Sam doesn't know how to say no.

"...Okay. As long as Dean agrees."

When Dean shows up a couple minutes later, he's stunned as well but gives Jack a pat on the shoulder once he believes it.

"Welcome back, kid."

"I want to apologize again for what I did," Jack says once they're all seated at the table and he's explained the how and when of his resurrection. "I know things won't be the same, so I won't be staying here anymore, but if you need help, you can pray to me. I can't make up for killing Mary, but I'm going to try, because I am sorry."

"You're right, you can't make that up to us," Dean says, "But it doesn't matter, because we forgive you."

"...Really?"

"Being pissed about it doesn't help anybody. You fucked up, but truth is, we've all got blood on our hands, and you're still family."

"...Thank you," Jack whispers. He's close to tears.

Sam is just happy to see their kid again, and relieved that Jack understood why they lied to get him into the Ma'lak box and accepted their apologies. Some of the guilt at betraying his son is starting to wash away.

"Don't get me wrong," Dean says, "I'm _thrilled_ you're back. But... why did Death bring you back? She wants anything that dies to stay dead."

"...Follow me."

He gets up and leads the Winchesters to one of the storage rooms. He takes out a knife and cuts his palm, then paints an unfamiliar sigil on the floor. Once he's done, he gestures for Sam and Dean to come closer.

"This is the only place in the universe you can talk without God seeing or hearing you. The sigil will only work with my blood, but if you pray, I can come and ward a room for you."

"That's awesome, but that still doesn't tell us why Billie brought you back."

"She and the thing that lives in the Empty want me to help seal God away."

"Seal Him away? Why?"

"They think that as long as He's around, you and Castiel will never die, and they don't like that. They brought me back because I'm the only one strong enough to fight Him."

"Chuck killed you with a snap of his fingers," Sam protests.

"Because I let Him."

"Chuck said it was the end," Dean points out. "We thought He left."

"We're not sure what He's gonna do, but He's still in this universe, so He still has plans," Jack informs them.

Sam feels sick to his stomach.

"He's still watching us?"

"We think so, but we're gonna stop Him."

"Okay, what's the plan?" Dean asks, "How do you lock up God?"

"We'll have to weaken Him before we lock Him away. Death and the Empty are working on something. They're almost ready."

"Amara might not be too happy about this," Dean points out. "He is Her little brother."

"That's why we need you. Death said you're still bonded with Her. You have to convince Her to let us do this, maybe even help us."

Dean looks uncomfortable. Sam himself doesn't like the reminder of Dean's connection with Amara, but doesn't argue.

"When it's time, Death or I will let you know," Jack tells them. "Until then, we can't talk about this outside of a warded room."

*

When Sam and Dean are alone again, they return to the warded room.

"We're gonna lock up God," Sam states incredulously.

"Yeah, we're gonna lock Him up. He's been running our whole lives, making us into what we are. We're not gonna let Him do it anymore."

"What if He wrote this, too? What if He set this up, made Himself the bad guy just so He could keep the story going?"

"Well then, He's fucked, because we've got a nephilim, Death itself, and some weird cosmic entity from another dimension on our side. We've always made it before, so we'll win this time, too."

"How do we know that's not because of Chuck? How do we know we really earned those wins?

"Sam, you're gonna drive yourself nuts asking questions like that. Next you're gonna start wondering if God's sitting somewhere typing the words that come out of our mouths."

His brother is right, Sam thinks. This is a literal existential crisis and if he digs too deep he really will go crazy. He exhales sharply.

"So, what, we just wait for Jack or Death to appear and tell us it's showtime?"

"Yep. Until then, we stick to the family business."

"...No," Sam says. "Chuck wants to watch us hurting, watch us deal with conflict. We're not hunting for Him. We're going on vacation."

"...Vacation?"

"You've still never been to the beach, right? Let's go to the beach."

*

They don't head straight for the beach. They take a detour to Des Moines first.

Dean, resigned to the fact that his advice is being ignored, goes off to do his own thing while Sam visits Emily.

He'd called ahead, let Cerise know he was coming, but it's a surprise to Emily, who's overjoyed to see him.

It was something of a relief, actually, because when it comes down to it Sam isn't sure how to spend quality time with a nine year old girl. He's afraid he's going to look like some creep that kidnapped a random child, but that anxiety is totally overshadowed by Emily's enthusiasm. _She_ knows exactly what she wants to do with her dad—namely, eat pizza, go to the bookstore, and visit a certain farm about half an hour away that has goats for visitors to feed. Sam is happy to oblige.

He sees other people looking at them a couple times. He expects suspicion or judgmental looks, but instead there are soft expressions. All the strangers see is a dad and his kid.

When it's time to say goodbye, Emily is brave and strong for Sam. She doesn't cry as she hugs him goodbye, which is the only thing keeping Sam from breaking down himself.

Leaving is difficult, but when Sam thinks about it, it was probably one of the best days he's had in his adult life.

*

And this, Sam reflects a couple days later as he basks in the sunlight, might be the most normal thing he and Dean have ever done.

They went to the beach on Labor Day.

It's crowded as Hell, but they're here and it's just as nice as Sam remembers from the time Jess brought him. This is the East Coast, not the West Coast, but they're far south enough that the water is a pleasant temperature. They splashed around a little, but mostly they're just sitting in the cheap beach chairs they acquired and enjoying the experience of being "at the beach." The sand, the scent in the air, the warmth... and Dean pigging out on the first good saltwater taffy he's been exposed to in his life.

Sam notices his brother is being surprisingly aloof about the dozens of women in bikinis walking around. Sam himself has made eye contact a few times with a woman about thirty feet away from them. He doesn't want to stare like a creep but he couldn't help noticing her soft-looking curves. She's here with another woman who's been glancing at Dean.

Dean finally sees the other woman looking his way and gives her the silent "how you doin'?"

Then he murmurs to Sam:

"I don't know who's a witch and who's a shapeshifting Japanese fox monster. I'm never gonna get laid again."

Finally Sam openly checks out the woman who's been looking at him. Yeah, she is gorgeous, and he wants to talk to her.

"Ever gone on a double date?" he asks Dean.

*

Sam and Dean successfully introduce themselves to the two women—Danielle and Sara. They say they're sisters, and Sam can practically sense his brother's newfound enthusiasm.

Dean's wanted to do this for years. Any time he finds out his date has a sister, he's told Sam that information with a suggestive look. Hell, even when he got hexed to fall in love with that witch Jamie, he wanted to set Sam up with her younger sister.

It's probably too good to be true, Sam thinks as he chats with Danielle about obscure fantasy movies, and Dean impresses Sara with classic car knowledge, the two of them finding a pair of sisters who they connect with. He can't see any reason to distrust them, though, and he does really like Danielle.

As they're leaving, it's clear that both Sam and Dean have opportunity to score tonight, but they're still wary of their dates. They shouldn't separate in case the women aren't who they seem to be, but how else are they going to get laid?

Then Dean makes a suggestion to Sara, one that's clearly directed at Danielle and Sam as well:

"How do you feel about getting a room with two beds?"

It takes Sam a second to process what his brother is suggesting, and he thinks he blushes when he realizes.

The sisters look at each other, having a silent discussion as only siblings can.

"Sure," they eventually answer.

*

"Ever done this before?" Danielle asks as the group enters their motel room. Two double beds, just a couple feet apart. Sam's heart is pounding. He's still not sure he wants to do this but after Dean's experiences in the past few months he's not gonna abandon his brother.

"Once," Sam admits. He sees Dean do a double-take, overhearing the answer. He explains wryly, ostensibly to his date, "College. I was black-out drunk."

***

After Sarah and Danielle leave a couple hours later, Sam and Dean are at something of a loss.

"Well, hookups have officially been ruined, because nothing that awesome is ever gonna happen to me again," Dean says. He's stretched out on his bed, fully dressed again, but his face is shoved against a pillow that probably smells like his date's hair.

"Yeah, me neither," Sam agrees, smiling up at the ceiling. He's exhilarated, still coming down in a way from the intensity of having sex in the same room as another couple. It was nerve-wracking and a little embarrassing at first, but once he forgot that his brother was there and focused on how insanely hot it is to hear almost identical sounds of female pleasure coming from both underneath him and the next bed, it was smooth sailing.

This is actually a nice motel, Sam notices, one that doesn't come with weird stains or smells, or broken tiles in the bathroom. He and Dean should stay in this one another night or two. Too bad those sisters have to leave tonight. He'd love to take Danielle out again and then get her truly alone. There are things he'd like to do to her without an audience.

As he lays daydreaming, a familiar flap of wings brings him back to alertness. He and Dean sit up.

"Jack!"

The nephilim raises a finger to his lips before cutting his palm and painting his warding sigil on the desk. Sam and Dean get to their feet and approach, wondering uncomfortably if he was waiting long or if he just happened to show up after they were both decent again.

"What's going on?" Sam asks once Jack finishes the sigil.

"It's time," he says. "We're gonna lock God away, forever."


	11. The Battle of Evermore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to lock away Chuck.

Within five minutes, the strange group of allies is collected in the motel room: Sam, Dean, Jack, Death, Michael in Adam's body, and the thing from the Empty who refuses to give a name. It's in the form of a tall, androgynous person—pale-skinned, towheaded, and with eyes so light Sam can't say what hue they are.

Either no one notices or everyone is pretending not to notice the room still smells a little like sex, so the Winchesters follow suit. Maybe this is the kind of awkward situation Chuck prevented from happening before, Sam reflects. He's glad Crowley isn't here at least.

"First, we're going to weaken Him," the Empty is saying—even their voice is genderless and Sam wonders if this is a real person they're possessing or if they created a sexless human-shaped form. "Michael and Jack will attack Chuck first, then I'll step in."

"Once He's down, I'll lock Him away with a Mark," Death finishes.

"A Mark? We talking the Mark of Cain?" Dean asks.

"Something similar, but it won't be the same Mark. We would like Sam to bear it."

Sam nods in agreement but starts a mental countdown to his brother's protest in three, two, one...

"Why Sam?" Dean demands.

"Because we don't know what the exact effects of the new Mark will be, and we can't risk giving it to someone already weakened by another."

"You're gonna give Sam a Mark that you don't even know what it does?"

"If he doesn't like the effects, it can be transferred," the Empty dismisses. "Meanwhile, you're going to be keeping the Darkness out of our way. Chuck might call on Her for help and none of us can withstand both of Them."

Dean accepts the situation begrudgingly:

"Alright, what're we waiting-"

§§§

"...for?" Dean finishes softly as he finds himself in an entirely different place, an upscale bar. He's not used to being in a classy joint like this, and it's even worse without Sam, but thoughts of discomfort or unfamiliarity fall away when he senses Her.

Amara.

She's sitting at the bar, but turns to face him.

His breath catches when he sees Her—it always does. It's not because of awe-inspiring beauty—She is attractive to him, but knowing She's God's sister makes it tough to see Her that way. It's closer to the thing he feels when he sees his brother after a long time apart, that it's his favorite face in the world because it's home.

Without a word to anyone, Amara leaves Her seat and approaches Dean. She's not wearing the long black gown anymore; She's in a dark red ensemble, something like a pantsuit.

"Dean."

"Amara." He'd almost forgotten what it was like around Her, to have his heart pounding this way, to feel this magnetic pull. "We need to talk."

"I know."

"You know?"

She touches his arm and by the time Dean blinks again, they're in a different place, a beautiful forest with shafts of golden sunlight piercing through the leaves.

They walk side by side.

"You're planning to lock My Brother away, as He did to Me," Amara states.

"How'd You know?"

"I've heard whispers. So has He."

"He knows?"

"Not enough to stop you, but the new warding in the bunker was warning enough."

"Are You gonna stop us?"

The Darkness smiles as if Dean asked a dumb question.

"My Brother locked Me away for almost fourteen _billion_ years. He should know what it's like."

Dean breathes a sigh of relief.

"Will you help?"

The ground beneath their feet begins to shake, and the sunlight fades as if a cloud is passing over, but when Dean looks up between the branches and leaves, the sky is clear. It's just the sun fading.

"Doesn't seem like I need to. Besides, I couldn't stand by and watch others hurt My little Brother, even if He does deserve it. Could you?"

They watch the sky darkening further, to a sunset red.

"What will this Mark do to Sam?" Dean asks. "Will it change him?"

"Perhaps, but that's better than the alternative, isn't it?"

"...What?"

"Sam hasn't told you?" Amara seems genuinely surprised.

Dean's heart sinks. What has Sam been hiding from him?

"Told me what?"

§§§

They're gathered in what Sam thinks is Central Park in New York.

Michael attacked first. The once obedient son recognized his Father's betrayal and used everything he had, even an archangel blade, against Chuck.

Chuck smote His son with a flick of the wrist, but He'd been weakened enough for Jack to continue the assault.

Just when the fight seemed to be going God's way, after Chuck flung the nephilim fifty feet away into a tree, the entity from the Empty joined. The moment it made contact with Chuck, its human-like form vanished and something like black slime spread over Chuck's body.

The ground shook and lightning struck the ground around them as it took Him over, hurt Him until He fell to His knees. The sun, shining brightly to start, began to wane, its light growing weak and anemic.

Sam wishes his brother was there to see it, the author of all their misery brought to His knees. Jack recovers and rejoins the group to pin Chuck's arms behind His back, but even if Jack hadn't survived, God has been subdued. He is weak, pale, small.

It is not Dean but Death who approaches with Sam, stopping a few feet away from the Creator of the universe.

"I'm ready," Sam says.

The Empty withdraws from Chuck and steps back as Death holds out her hand towards God.

Just as Sam begins to see and feel an unfamiliar shape burning into his forearm, his brother's voice makes him look up.

"Sam!"

Sam turns and Death is forced to pause her cosmic task. Dean and Amara are here. He feels a stab of jealousy at first seeing them together, but forcibly reminds himself that Amara's connection to Dean means he has more in common with the Darkness than he does with anyone else present.

"Dean? What are you doing here?"

"Amara told him," Chuck pipes up. Even in His weakened state, He looks incredibly pleased.

"Told him what?!" Sam snaps at God.

"Hell," Dean says weakly. "She told me you're going to Hell, and I can't even go with you."

Sam can't keep looking at his brother, but he does his best to explain:

"Chuck said because I shot Him, one of us—only one of us—was going to Hell. I pulled the trigger, Dean, so it should be me." He can feel Chuck and Amara watching the two of them intently. This is entertainment for Them.

"So you killed Rowena. Our friend."

"It was the only way to be sure."

When Sam dares to meet Dean's eyes again, his brother is blinking away tears. Then Dean turns to Death.

"With Chuck locked up, you can fix it, right?"

Death hesitates.

"You can make it so we go to the same place, can't you?" Dean presses.

"She can't," God interjects. "It's written into the code of this universe now that you and Sam will be separated. It's a rule, and she won't break it."

"And let me guess," Dean says, voice thick with emotion even as he tries to speak with his usual lack of deference, "You're the only one who can rewrite it."

"Yep."

Sam sees his brother making a hard choice. He knows exactly what Dean is thinking and loves him for it even though he can't let it happen.

"Dean, don't."

"What will it take?" Dean asks Chuck.

"Dean," Sam protests again, this time joined by Jack, Death, and the Empty.

His big brother ignores them all and addresses only Chuck:

"You've been skulking around this universe this whole time, which means You still want something from us. What will it take for You to rewrite it or at least let me switch places with him?"

"I'll put it this way," Chuck tells the brothers, "You lock Me up, the two of you will get to lead whatever lives you choose whether it's the family business or a white picket fence. Sam could keep the new Mark or give it to someone else. You might die on a hunt, in a car accident, heart attack, who knows? Could be tomorrow, could be in fifty years. Whatever path you take, when you die, Dean's going to Heaven, Sam's going to Hell. Of course, even if you do live another fifty years, the world's gonna look a lot different. Those ghosts I let out... they're gonna keep killing people and there's no way to stop most of them. That's assuming humanity survives this." God nods up at the weak sun. "It's gonna get real cold in a few months. Think the movie _Sunshine_. Humans are great at adapting, so some of you will make it, but without the Sun, Earth can't support life the same way. Billions will starve or freeze to death."

"Don't listen to him," the Empty urges.

"If Sam rejects the Mark and I walk free, the sun will return to normal, humanity gets to keep going, and I'll make you an offer to both fix the ghost situation and give you a chance to go to the same place when you die," Chuck finishes.

"You mean, we have to keep acting out Your story," Sam says.

"I mean, you end the story My way, you get to write the epilogue."

The Winchesters exchange looks. They're so close to true freedom, but is it worth it if half the human race dies?

"We'll bite. What is Your way?" Sam asks.

"I've created a Trial that, once completed, will allow every violent or vengeful spirit in the Veil to move on. Not just the ones I brought back, every ghost that might hurt a living person. I'll leave this universe, too."

"Will we die?"

"That depends. After the Trial, you'll have the rest of your life to change your final destination, and yes, you can be together."

If they say no, Sam thinks, billions of people will die and he'll burn in Hell. If they agree to it, they only have to play along one last time. Then they're free, and he'll have a chance to redeem himself.

"Is He telling the truth?" he asks Death.

"Yes," she answers. She's fuming, and part of Sam is too. They have God Himself on His knees, humbled and humiliated, ready to be locked away forever, and they might let Him walk because He's making an offer the Winchesters can't refuse. Death can't force the Mark upon Sam; he has to accept it willingly. Is he willing to doom billions? Maybe Emily, too?

He looks at his brother. Dean is nodding— _take the deal._

"We'll do it," Sam says. "Let Him go."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" the Empty protests.

"This is why we needed to keep them apart until _after_ Chuck was sealed away," Death sighs. "Winchesters..." With that, she takes her leave of them.

Jack releases Chuck and Amara goes to His side to help Him up as Dean stands with his brother.

As Chuck heals Himself, the sun begins to shine brightly again. Even with Dean next to him, Sam feels a lump in his throat, remembering the last time he saw this, what it meant. And now it means they've made another deal with another kind of devil.

Once Chuck is fully recovered, He snaps his fingers.

*

Sam and Dean find themselves back at the bunker, with God and the Darkness standing at the top of the stairs to the library.

"I take it you want to do the Trial, Dean," Chuck says.

"If this is gonna kill whoever does it, yeah."

"Undertaking the Trial won't kill you, not like the ones to close Hell. But no human has ever survived it before."

"Whatever it is, I'm doing it," Dean says to Sam. "Spit it out, Chuck. What do I have to do?"

God looks upon Dean imperiously.

"The one Trial to banish all harmful ghosts is... to kill your soulmate."

There's a long pause before Dean responds, glancing at Sam.

"I thought if you shared a Heaven with somebody, they were your soulmate. Kinda."

"They are."

"But that would be Sam."

Sam looks upon God with more disgust than he knew he could hold for a single entity.

"You want him to kill me?"

"How can You ask that from me?" Dean demands.

"The point of a Trial is that it's difficult, guys," Chuck says.

"'Difficult'? You just admitted no one's done it."

"No one's _survived_ the pain of killing their soulmate before, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. The two of you accomplish the impossible all the time."

"You've been watching me trying to protect Sam ever since I was four years old, and now You think I'm gonna turn around and send him to Hell?!" Dean shouts.

"You asked what it would take for Me to change the fact that you'll be separated after death. _You_ don't have to do this Trial. Sam could do it. You could even find someone else to kill their soulmate and fix the ghost situation. You're free already, but I won't change what you want changed unless one of you completes the Trial."

"Fuck you," Sam tells Chuck.

"Dean," the Darkness says gently in the bitter silence, "Remember there is another option."

The two primordial entities disappear and Sam turns to his brother.

"What's She talking about?"

Dean quickly wipes away a tear before reluctantly explaining:

"If She consumes our souls, we wouldn't have to worry about who's going to Heaven or Hell. We'd be together, sort of."

Sam considers it for a few seconds. At first his heart leaps at a way out of this that doesn't involve them hurting each other, but then he thinks about _sharing_ Dean with Amara. That would be a different kind of Hell but torture nonetheless. He couldn't stand knowing his brother was a part of someone else like that. But if it's what Dean wants...

"What're you thinking?"

"About Amara? No. We won't be us, this, whatever we are, anymore if we become part of Her." Dean avoids looking at his brother by retrieving the bottle of whiskey and a couple glasses. He pours them each a double and downs his in one gulp before changing the subject. "You were right. God fucking played us, again."

Sam is trying to think of what to say when suddenly Dean snaps at him.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

Dean's apparent anger toward him, even though it's an obvious mask for other emotions, makes Sam flinch a little. His brother sees it and closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry, Sam. All I wanna do is tell you that it's gonna be okay, that we'll figure something out, and I can't. I don't think we can win this."

Seeing Dean so hopeless hurts. Dean has spent years being a strong big brother figure and now, at the end, he's showing a level of vulnerability that frightens Sam. This isn't what was supposed to happen. None of it was.

They're free, supposedly, but free to do what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I the only person who feels weird writing Sam and Dean in the latter half of 2019 when the whole point of this season is them escaping a writer? No? Okay.


	12. Sheol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Free Will chooses their own ending(s).

Chuck is not happy about being assaulted by His son and grandson. He is not happy that either Death or the nameless cosmic entity who sleeps in the Empty discovered a warding against Him. He's not at all happy that Jack was brought back and taught that warding.

But He knows who will be happy about it.

Chuck finds Castiel sitting in a motel room watching Netflix.

" _Stranger Things_ , huh?" He comments.

Cas is startled, but his face twists into an expression of rage.

"You."

"Yes, Me." Chuck does Cas a favor and pauses the episode with a flick of his finger. "Don't you think Sam and Dean would've liked to watch season three with you?"

"...The bunker had gotten awkward."

"I know, right? I still can't believe Dean hated being in that body enough to ask one of you to have sex with him, _and_ he still doesn't know who did it!"

"I don't know what You're talking about. Dean didn't have any sex with his brother nor with me," Castiel declares in perfect obedience to the elder Winchester before demanding, "What are You doing here?"

"I have some information you might be interested in."

"I don't want anything from You."

"Sure about that? The Winchesters are hiding something big. From you specifically."

The angel looks doubtful.

"Like what?" he asks in the same condescending tone he used to use with Crowley. Chuck doesn't appreciate the attitude but ignores it.

"Something that they're _dying_ to tell you but they made a promise to somebody important that they wouldn't."

As Cas stands and turns to physically face Chuck, his tattered wings, like those of a bird who went into molt and never came out, spread as if to challenge his own Father.

"You're lying. You're just telling me this to create conflict. You're still trying to make us live out Your story!"

"If it makes you feel any better, it is almost over," Chuck says.

Alarmed, Castiel pulls in his wings so quickly he loses a feather as he tightens them against his form, a frightened bird making itself small.

"What's going to happen to Sam and Dean?"

"Relax, I'm not gonna kill 'em." Chuck takes a step forward and catches the feather as it floats to the floor. It's invisible to humans in its current form but certain magics can cause it to manifest as an ordinary white feather. After that it could end up lining a mouse's nest, or a witch might find it and use it for a spell. Or a hunter (one time Sam and Dean had this hilarious discussion wondering if it's some heavenly faux pas to ask angels for their feathers, because Dean figured asking for a feather would be like asking for a single hair but Sam thought the request was bordering on intimate).

"Not like You killed Jack," Castiel says coldly.

"Jack had to go."

"Why, because he offered paradise? Because he was the one who could bring peace to this world even though You want Sam and Dean to keep fighting and suffering in it?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Take my Sister—She stands back and admires the grace of creation, partakes in it because She knows She can't conceive the things I can. Obviously She's kind of a Dean!girl, but point is, She lets Me write My story. Jack was different. He was changing the story too much."

"He didn't deserve to die!"

Chuck smiles at the angel as He releases Cas's feather and lets it fall onto the bed.

"You should talk to Sam and Dean about that."

*

Not long after that, Chuck becomes aware that Sam Winchester is praying to Him.

 _"Chuck,"_ he is saying, kneeling next to his bed, _"I need to ask You some questions about the Trial. You said we can write our own epilogue if we end the story Your way, and I'm willing to do that, but I need to know some things first."_

That gets Chuck's interest. He verifies that there are no powerful weapons on Sam's person nor within reach, and then pops in, sitting in Sam's desk chair.

"What's up?"

Sam gasps softly, as if he hadn't expected Chuck to actually show, but regains his composure and sits on the side of his bed.

"I need to know more about the Trial."

"Kill your soulmate, that's all there is to it. In your case, Dean."

"There's no spell or ritual?"

"Yeah, no, not bothering with that. Once he's dead by your hand, the ghosts go back."

"By my hand?"

"Or your knife, or your gun, whatever."

"Do I have to outlive him?"

Chuck absolutely loves where this is going. The Equalizer was introduced as a weapon allowing a regular human to kill an overpowered nephilim—since archangels can only be killed by other archangels, a nephilim more powerful than an archangel had to be dispatched with a weapon whose power drew from simplicity, from a single absolute rule. Now Sam is thinking about using it on Dean. This will be the greatest B.M. scene yet.

"No, you don't," Chuck answers, "but at this point you'd still go to Hell. Without him."

"What if we do the Trial ten or twenty years from now, after I've had a chance to make up for what I did?" Sam tries.

"...That'd be anticlimactic, but technically you could try that," Chuck admits. "Problem is, without My help there's no guarantee you'll both live that long, and that plan's gonna cost a lot of lives in the meantime. Those ghosts are only gonna get stronger and kill more people."

"You said we were free, but You're not giving us a lot of options here."

"I am giving you options. You and Dean could walk away from all this and raise Emily if you wanted."

"But You know we won't because we can't stand by and let ghosts murder people when we alone have the power to stop it."

"But you _could_. That said..." Chuck closes His eyes for a second to indicate to Sam that He is focusing on another part and time of the universe. "Do you wanna know what Dean did a couple hours ago?"

Sam waits. Apparently not so much, but he knows he's about to find out.

"He summoned Death to try to make a deal. He's bent on taking your place or following you to Hell. She didn't make any promises, but given enough time, he'll probably find a way. If you want to save your brother's soul, you need to figure out what you're doing, fast."

The look of despair on Sam's face is almost as satisfying as when Chuck told him Dean was already gone to the cemetery to find Jack.

§§§

Castiel doesn't like acting on a tip from Chuck, but he has a nagging feeling that God was not actually lying. A couple days later, he heads back to the bunker.

He enters and wanders the corridors, glancing in rooms as he goes past. The kitchen is somewhat messy, which means Sam and Dean are either here or will be back within a few hours. Dean can be a secret slob—like Stradlater in _The Catcher in the Rye_ —but he never leaves the kitchen dirty when he and Sam go out on a hunt.

As the angel comes close to a little-used storage room, he senses powerful warding. Not against him, however. He can enter the room the way a fruit fly crawls through a screened window.

There's an unfamiliar sigil painted in blood on the floor.

He approaches and crouches to examine it. He touches his fingertips to the dried blood. Whose blood is this?

The power contained in it is unmistakable.

"Jack?"

The angel lets himself hope, lets himself smile.

"Cass!" Sam is standing in the doorway, looking worried. "What are you doing here?"

"Is this Jack's blood?"

Sam opens his mouth to answer but apparently he doesn't have one. There's an emotional weight on him, not from this but something heavier, Cas notices.

"I recognize the power in it. Is Jack alive?"

"...He begged us not to tell you."

Cas is hurt at the mere thought of being kept in the dark.

"What? Why?"

"He wouldn't say. He said it was for your sake, not his."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. He stops in once in a while, but never stays more than a couple hours." 

Cas closes his eyes and prays:

"Jack, I know you're alive. I'm in the bunker. I want to see you, please."

They wait for a minute before Sam shakes his head.

"Stay here."

Sam steps back into the hallway and moves about twenty yards away, which is still well within range of Castiel's hearing. He makes a phonecall.

"Jack- No, we didn't tell him. He found the sigil and figured it out.

"...He wants to see you. Why can't he?

"... What? What does that mean?

"... What kind of a deal?" Sam asks, dread creeping into his voice.

Castiel understands now. Jack knows how happy he would be to see him again. And he's right; that kind of joy would infuriate the Empty.

But after everything, Cas is ready. If the cost of seeing Jack alive and well again is his existence, he's ready to pay.

Sam hangs up and slowly returns to the room where Cas has been waiting.

"He said you know why, that it's because of a deal you made. He's trying to protect you from something."

The angel sighs.

"That's not his job."

"What deal, Cass?"

He has to tell them.

"Where's Dean?"

*

After explaining the terms of the deal to the Winchesters, Castiel is somewhat surprised at their acceptance, sad as they are.

"I get it," Dean says. "You shouldn't've done that and lied to us about it, but I get it."

"Then you must 'get' that I want to see Jack, even if it kills me."

"Cass..." Sam starts to protest, but gives up. He understands, too. "We don't wanna lose you."

"You and Dean have each other. You are each other's purpose in life. I had my son." Castiel's eyes are watering. "Help me see him again."

Sam looks past him, towards the large entryway to the library. Dean looks too.

Cas turns around and sees Jack. He's relieved to see true emotion in his face, even if it is worry. His wings are gleaming as brightly as they did the first time they met. He's _Jack_ again.

"Jack."

"Castiel." The nephilim rushes into Castiel's arms and hugs him tightly. "I wanted to see you, but I thought I could keep you safe if you didn't know."

"It's not your responsibility to protect me, Jack." Cas holds his son at arm's length. He appreciates the motivation, but if there's one thing he knows it's that parents are the ones who protect their children, not the other way around. He protected Jack from the Empty. Now Jack is here again. That's as close to a happy ending as Castiel could have asked for.

He knows what's coming next, but the angel will go with a smile on his face.

§§§

For the second time, Sam, Dean, and Jack stand by a pyre where Castiel's body is burning.

This time Jack doesn't ask questions; he only cries. Sam puts an arm around his shoulders to try to comfort him, but the nephilim flees, vanishing into thin air under Sam's touch.

"We're here if you need us, Jack," Sam murmurs.

They watch the flames in silence for a couple minutes before either of them speaks.

"Cass chose this," Dean states. "He decided how it would end for him and he did it. That's better than either of us'll ever get."

In the pensive silence, Sam decides it's time to raise the question:

"Would you let me choose your... ending?"

"What?"

"If I thought I could do the Trial, would you let me?"

Dean won't look at Sam, only at the fire. The question is blasphemous against everything they've ever fought for, but it's a path they have to consider.

"If you asked me to."

"Every day, all these ghosts are killing more people. We're the only ones who can stop it."

"What will you do, after?"

"Lock up the bunker, leave the key with Jody, and find a place for me and Emily."

"What about Jack? He's not gonna be okay with this."

"Don't worry about Jack, or me, or anyone else, Dean. Just tell me if you'll do it."

"I will. And we're gonna do it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Sam isn't ready for that.

"Yeah. We're doing what Chuck wants, fine. You're choosing where and how, I'm choosing when."

"Why tomorrow?"

"You said it yourself, every day people are dying. Every day we wait is blood on our hands."

Dean is right, and part of Sam is relieved that he won't have to wait and dread it.

He clears his throat and manages a reply:

"So, last night on Earth, huh?"

" _Last_ last night on Earth," Dean points out.

"What d'you wanna do?" Sam asks, not much louder than a whisper.

"Today's Tuesday, right? Movie night."

Sam manages a nod, though Dean probably sees him blinking away tears.

*

The next morning, Sam has a hangover which he chooses to cure with some hair of the dog. He needs it anyway to settle his nerves.

He's already written a letter to Emily; a carefully worded goodbye that does not give her false hopes of seeing him again but that a child of her age will not realize until much later was a suicide note.

He can't avoid Dean knowing he's sending a letter, so he claims it's to Jody so she'll know to come visit if he can't make himself pick up the phone afterwards, but not until after it's over.

They meet in the warded room, an unspoken agreement that Chuck will not have the satisfaction of watching this interaction.

Sam can't look his brother in the eye. The Gun is tucked in his waistband, hidden from Dean but so heavy.

"I'm ready," Dean says.

The bile rises in Sam's throat. Is he really going to do this? He has to, but can he? Is the thought of all those deaths on their hands enough to make him pull the trigger? He thought it was, but even if it cost dozens of lives every day, that would weigh less on his heart than what he's about to do.

He tries to speak, to say something to make Dean smile, but no words come. Instead, his brother hugs him tightly.

Sam closes his eyes, then Dean holds his face in his hands.

"It's okay, Sam," he whispers. "We're doing the right thing. It's not for us, it's for everybody else."

Sam nods, but he still can't look as he takes the Gun out and presses the tip of the muzzle to Dean's chest. His brother's heart is pounding so hard, Sam thinks he can feel it through the weapon. This is dangerous, but he knows Dean won't look down; he just won't. His brother will only look at his face.

"Sammy."

Sam has to open his eyes.

"Promise me something."

"Anything," Sam tells him.

"Promise me I'll see you again. Promise me you'll be there someday. In Heaven."

Everything depends on Sam's ability to sell this lie, a lie he wasn't prepared to tell.

"I've followed you everywhere, Dean. I'll follow you to Heaven, whatever it takes."

His big brother is looking into his eyes like he isn't sure he believes Sam.

"Promise I'll see you again."

"Promise," Sam breathes.

Dean's eyes narrow, but there's more fear than suspicion in the expression.

"Sam... what gun are you using?"

"What?"

"Which gun?"

"Mine."

Dean isn't looking down between them but it's clear he wants to.

"Sammy."

"Dean, don't-" Sam tries to compose himself enough to use full sentences. "This is already the hardest thing- It's my gun, Dean." He turns off the safety though he doesn't think he can pull the trigger now. He just can't. He could point a weapon at himself and do it but not his brother.

Tears are rolling down Dean's face.

"It's Chuck's gun, isn't it?"

Sam wishes he could pray to a higher power for strength, but the only higher power he has left is his brother, and his brother doesn't want him to do this.

"Close your eyes, Dean," he begs.

"Give me the gun, Sam."

Sam turns the safety back on and hands it over, half-hoping Dean will turn it on him, take this burden from his shoulders. Of course his brother will never do that; Sam is still going to have to complete the Trial. He can't deny his brother any request in their final minutes, though. Every second he stands here with Dean makes up for the hellfire awaiting him.

"If you were planning on killing yourself after, you could've used another gun," Dean points out, gruffness concealing his distress.

"No, I couldn't," Sam tells him. He couldn't have risked outliving his brother.

Out of the corner of his eye he detects movement and looks. Chuck is standing in the doorway to the room, watching. He can't get any closer because of the warding. This is the only way He can see them.

Dean follows Sam's gaze.

"Son of a bitch..." He aims the gun at Chuck. "You got one chance to fix all of this. You and the ghosts, gone. Sam and me, lives we choose, same heaven when we die. Now."

"Or what, you'll end the universe?" God scoffs at them.

Dean glances at Sam. Will they?

Sam answers his brother by addressing Chuck:

"We're not playing Your fucking games anymore."

"You wanna watch us suffer?" Dean presses. "You wanna watch us fight for the things we've already earned? _Watch this._ "

Even knowing what's going to happen to Dean, Sam can only smile as his brother pulls the trigger.

Chuck stumbles back. Dean didn't quite hit His heart, but it's a mortal wound. It begins to glow with a blinding white light as their surroundings begin to shake.

God is dying and the universe is, too.

Sam helps his brother to the floor and cradles him. Dean is still conscious, barely.

"Dean? Dean, stay with me just a few more seconds, okay?"

His big brother nods, through his breathing is already labored.

"Thank you," Sam whispers, kissing Dean's forehead.

"For what?"

"Ending the whole universe for me. For us."

"You were trying to do the right thing," Dean admits. "But I couldn't let you go to Hell and I wasn't gonna let that smug dick watch."

Sam presses his cheek against Dean's.

Most of his life has been other people making choices for him or about him. He's had his body stolen from him a dozen times, had things forced upon him, wasn't even allowed to die when he wanted to. He's watched his brother be the frontman, the hero, the one who makes the kill time and time again. And here it is again—he made a choice, and Dean didn't let him.

But this one time—the last time, since the universe is literally ending—this time it's exactly what Sam wanted to happen. He couldn't have made himself end the world, erase himself and Dean and all 7 and a half billion people on the planet, just to get out of going to Hell. But his big brother could do it for him, and Sam is glad he did. It means they get to be together right up until the end.

Maybe ending the universe now means nothing they did mattered, but Sam thinks it did matter. They were brought into a shitty world and they tried to make it a better place the only way they knew how. Turned out that the game was rigged, so they ended it.

For Sam, it's oddly peaceful feeling Dean's final breath leave his body, just before everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> As I've noted, I'm not particularly proud of this work. Someone else should take these ideas and execute them better. And give me a link.
> 
> I did inadvertently predict Rowena's death occuring in episode 3, Castiel leaving, Chuck wanting an ending where Sam and Dean kill each other, Sam and Dean going to Des Moines at some point, and Billie and the Empty working with Jack to defeat Chuck, so that's cool, and maybe more of this fic will become canon by the end of the series, but I'm gonna orphan it unless the finale airs and I got the ending like dead-on.


End file.
